Hydro-Fever in the upper Tista basin and issues of regional environmental security

Transboundary Tista Basin forms a part of the larger Brahmaputra Basin in the Eastern Himalaya. In recent times, traditional symbiotic and intimate human-environment relationship in the Tista Basin has been increasingly put to danger by diverse undercurrents of development. Besides other forms of development including improper expansion of agriculture and irrigation, unscientific construction of roads and buildings, unplanned urbanization etc., the Central and Provincial Governments of India are vehemently underway with series of hydropower projects particularly within Sikkim-Darjeeling catchment of the basin. This has resulted in imbalances in the environment and various ecological systems there in.