(Proceedings of Conference on Large Dams and Hydropower Development, 26–28 May 2004, New Delhi, pp.VII/81–88).
River valley projects have been known to create environmental impacts. EIA exercise helps bringing out the potential impacts associated with various activities of these projects to enable to make Environmental Management Plan. The success of implementing the mitigation measures lies with the quality of EIA report and the level of accuracy in defining the scope of EIA study and the identification and prediction of impacts. The EIA notification 1994 and the guidelines, questionnaires and manuals are the tools towards addressing the impacts of multipurpose, dam or hydroelectric projects. Lack of knowledge of environmental implications, delayed implementation of environmental safeguards, and absence of monitoring mechanism generally are the principal factors which are of concern today. The result of non-implementation of mitigation measures is environmental degradation, siltation and socio-economic conflicts affecting the viability of the project itself. The river valley projects may generate benefits for longer period by addressing the environmental and social issues successfully and closely monitoring the ecological parameters in the project impact area.
Environmental impacts, Mitigation measures, Safeguards, Non-implementation, Environmental degradation, Siltation, Socio-economic
