Government arm-twisting villagers for Siang mega dam: Congress in Arunachal

GUWAHATI

The Arunachal Pradesh unit of Congress has accused Pema Khandu’s Bharatiya Janata Party government of arm-twisting villagers to support the Siang Upper Multi-purpose Project (SUMP) in the central part of the State.

There is no official word on the size of the hydropower project. Still, activists and villagers fearing large-scale displacement claim SUMP would entail a mega dam across the Siang River to generate 11,500 megawatts of electricity. India is reportedly pushing the project as a counterweight to China’s planned 60,000 MW project across the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet’s Medog county.

The Yarlung Tsangpo is the upstream of Siang, which meets two other rivers – Dibang and Lohit – in Assam to flow down as the Brahmaputra up to the Bangladesh border.

“Central forces have been stationed in the Siang River belt to facilitate pre-feasibility surveys for the project. These forces are harassing innocent villagers, underscoring the government’s dictatorial approach,” Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee president Bosiram Siram said in the State’s capital, Itanagar, on Friday (August 8, 2025).

He urged State government representatives to visit the Siang belt for feedback from the villagers instead of speaking on behalf of the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC). “The voices of the people, who will become landless if this project is executed, must matter,” he said.

Anti-dam activists and members of the Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum have been accusing the government of luring or forcing some villagers to sign agreements in support of the SUMP.

The National Hydropower Corporation has been assigned to conduct a pre-feasibility survey for the SUMP, estimated to cost ₹1.13 lakh crore, under heavy security cover. In December 2024, more than 350 environmentalists, journalists, scientists, and civil society organisations submitted a letter to President Droupadi Murmu, urging her to direct the government to withdraw security forces from the area.

However, Chief Minister Khandu defended the SUMP as a much-needed “defensive measure” against the sudden release of water by China from the Medog project after its completion.

Mr Siram also urged the State government to scrap the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1978. Adherents of indigenous faiths in the State want the Act implemented to protect the culture, heritage, and belief systems of the tribal people.

“A law that creates division among the tribal people should not be implemented at any cost. There is no need for this law. Outsiders are trying to make us fight among ourselves based on religion. We should not let Arunachal Pradesh become another Manipur,” he said.