The Construction of the Delhi Dam and the Three Gorges Dam - Essay Example

Comparison of Nimbyism between china three gorges dam and India Delhi dam Dams are huge barriers that are built across rivers, streams or major watercourses to restrain and utilize the flow of water for human purposes such as control flooding, generating hydro-electric power or for irrigation. When the water is confined the water body that is created will look like lake or reservoirs. Chinese three gorges dam project was first proposed by Dr. Yat-Sen, his main aim was to control the flooding of Yangtze River and generate electricity. However, according to a public opinion survey by Chetham, (2002), the local population felt that the extra energy generated by the project would not benefit them as the project was aimed at producing energy not intended to the local consumers. The local incomes of the local population changed significantly as a result of the construction of Chinese Three Gorges Dam, approximately 60, 000 households were employed in the different phases of construction of the dam. They were meagerly paid and their working conditions were very poor. The local communities had no choice but to experience significant reduction of their incomes since more than a million of them had been displaced from farming where they earned their living from. World Report stated that every family of five people would get 29,000 yuan as compensation for their displacement; however, the opinion of the local communities indicated that those who were entitled to the funds never really got the money. This impacted heavily on their local capital as the Three Gorges area is highly populated. The Chinese census showed that the Three Gorges area is three times more populated than the average national population density (Gupta & Asher, 2000). In India, the construction of the dam caused more damage to the economic situation of the local residents. Before the construction of the dam, the local residents were spending $154 Million but after the construction of the lake, the annual expenditure of the local residents dropped by $88 Million to result to $34.3 Million annual spending. The local income decline in the Delhi lake region is also associated with the loss of income form the displaced people who had lost their source of living as a result of construction of the dam. This led to decline in the value of Lake Delhi Assessed Property by 17.7% as a result of flooding. Consequently, the Property Tax Revenue of the area dropped by $1.2 Million. This caused a lot of challenges for the local residents who were faced with huge bank loans default with no hope of rebuilding. The construction of the China Three Gorges Dam was experienced by China Three Gorges University (CTGU) which is made up of Hubei Three Gorges University and University of Hydraulic & Electric Engineering. The university is mostly involved with energy and the production of electricity. The university has laboratories which have been used to carry out research on different energy projects like China Three Gorges Dam, Project 211, Qingjiang Geheyan Water Power Plant and Gezhou Dam. Indian Delhi University was also instrumental in the research on the assessment of the Indian Delhi dam on the local ecosystem. Although the Indian Delhi University was not as actively involved in research of the dam in the laboratories, more research was carried out about the dam in this university. Construction of the Delhi project dam began at around 1922 to 1929 by the interstate power company for production of hydroelectric power. In 1973 the generators in the dams stopped operating. It is during the year 2008 that floods damaged property worth $500,000 the association decided to partner with Modern Hydro to have the power plants turbines refurbished and decommissioned. The dam was expected to be operational in 2010 but that was not the case. Lake Delhi dam has only been used as a recreational site. It is on 26th January, 2014 that the officials of the dam received a long awaited federal permit that cleared the construction of the washed dam. The construction is set to begin dung 2014s’ spring. The research is about the ‘Nimbyism’ between china three gorges and India Delhi presents the rise and the disillusionment of “big dam regime”. These two dams are among the largest dam projects that are built in the main rivers in both countries. Both dams impose the impacts of sustainability is very high as they are going to overwhelm large land mass, displace millions of people and also have high ecological impact. Furthermore, the two dams have had so much negative impact which has made them receive national and international attention as well as opposition. Despite the fact that the two dams received immense opposition and non-cooperation from international financial institution such as the World Bank, the respective countries generated and used their own resources to finance the construction of these dams. It is also important to note that both India and China are reported to have a very fast growing economy. The two countries have also hit the headlines with being the producers of dam induced displacement. The dam induced displacements were responsible for the conflicts which emerged between the local communities and the government. There are some stakeholders that are so much concerned in the two countries in regard to construction of the dams had some form of concurrent views. The first is the farmers who were going to be forcefully evicted. In China for example the estimated hectares that were going to be wasted was about 23,000ha of agriculture land (Veeck, Ponnell, Smith & Huang, 2007). The next stakeholders that were concerned with the dams’ construction were the human right organization. They were concerned about the construction process and the forced resettlement of the people. The other people who were concerned about the construction of the dam in these countries were the environmentalist; this is because the construction of the dam was going to have a lot of impacts. In China for example, the environmentalists and the archeologists were also interested in the construction of Delhi and THREE GORGE DAM in India and China respectively. The other common theme is the similarity in the conflict arena. The two countries conflict as a result of the construction was the socio-cultural and environmental issues. The social-cultural issues include forced resettlement, overpowering of dissenting views, health concern and loss of archeological spots. The environmental issues include; endangered species, erosional problems and clean energy. The main conflict between the projects in the Delhi dam and the local residents was caused by human displacement and lack of proper manner or policy to advocate for the resettlement of the local people. The people of Delhi joined the movement that was initially formed to protest against the construction of the dam. The movement was known as the narmada dharangrasta samiti. These movement wanted better policies for settlement and compensation of the people that were going to be displaced. The people did not oppose the construction of the dam rather they were concerned about the settlement. More people had been displaced and property of immense value destroyed an others damaged. This was a blow to the economic development of the local residents who were left with bank loans to repay when they did not have any access to finance as their properties got destroyed. The construction of the dam also shunned the locals for regional development as investors felt theta the value of their properties had gone down significantly as a result of massive flooding the areas would experience, as such, no investor would risk their funds in the area. The Indian Delhi Dam had more conflicts than the Chinese Three Gorges Dam because the Indian government became corrupt about the management of the dam and the conflict the project was eliciting. The dam failed after causing destruction to 16 residences, damaged 70 and released 180, 000 cubic yards of sediments to the downstream which led to massive flooding. The political system in India was so corrupt and unfair. The government refused to accept that the local people are there by right and resettling only those who have title deeds. Corruption also manifests itself when the local government issues the more productive land to the wealthier families and the less productive land to the poor families. This is why the conflict of construction of large dams was all about the struggle against unsustainable development. “the anti-dam movement spearheaded by the NBA played a major role in drawing attention to the problems associated with large dams, and giving a voice to the ousters” (Singh, 1997). The Three Gorges Dam Project evoked a lot of controversy as there were massive conflicts between the different groups. The conflict was based on the problems of flooding the dam would create when the waters of the reservoir rise up to 290 meters (Chetham, 2002). The reservoir would flood to 12,000 acres of field, gorges, 800 historical sites and more than 150 towns. Although the dam would generate china 10% energy needed to stop bringing coal, it would cause forced displacement of more than a million people which did not faced a lot of conflicts with different stakeholder like farmers, local settler, environmentalists, archeologists and human rights activists (Economy, 2004). The local community was not as pleased with the construction of the Three Gorges Dam as the local government. Farmers especially did into support the construction of the dam because the reservoir generated by the Dam would cause flooding to more than 23,000 hectares of agricultural land (Veeck, Ponnell, Smith & Huang, 2007). Although they were being compensated with other fields, those fields were five times less productive and many farmers were forced to stop farming (Chetham, 2002). Human rights organizations were also opposed to the construction of the dam because of the rigid conditions of the laws the Chinese government has taken towards dissenting views. They are also opposed to the forced displacement of very many people which were over a million. The human rights activists were opposed to the use of prisoners who would be used as laborers for the construction of the dam (Chetham, 2002). Another group opposed to the construction of the dam was the environmentalists were opposed to the construction of the dam because of the environmental degradation the dam was threatening to cause. They were also opposed to the loss of the endangered species in the site such as Siberian Crane, Yangtze Dolphin and Chinese Sturgeon (Gupta & Asher, 2000). The archeologists felt that the dam would flood very important cultural and historical sites such as the ghost city of Fengdu (Economy, 2004). The three gorge dam had a lot of benefit to the economy of China such as flood control, power generation, navigation among others however; it was bound to cause enormous environmental hazards. Experts indicated that the construction would increase the probability of an occurrence of earth quake, mudslide and water pollution. Another concern was the destruction of very key archeological site that were estimated to be over 5000 years old, hundreds of sacred ancient monuments, and important temple would be a great loss of human civilization (Arid, 2001). Environmental activism was extremely low in China and any protest did not occur as compared to India which started early. The activism in China started around 1980s. This is the reason as to why there were no traditional forms of social protest and movements. This scenario gave no platform for any active protest over the construction of three gorge dam. The only area where the protest was being voiced was among scientists, scholars and civil right activists. The most eminent person to be known to have a protest against this dam is the Chinese journalist known as Dai Qing where in her book ‘Yangtze! Yangtze!’ questions human security challenges of the three gorge dam. The government banned her book and she was later arrested in her protest at Tiananmen Square. The crackdown in Tiananmen silenced the Chinese society and there was no major civic engagement till mid 1990s (Fengshi, 2009). Three gorge dam became a controversial topic among the Chinese government in 1992 because of its enormous size, large human displacement, potential environmental threats and the huge costs that are associated with the construction. Another difference that emerges from the China is the fact that he Chinese government was so authoritarian, there was a proposal to reduce the height of the wall of the dam from 185m to the original 156m but nothing was taken to consideration. The Chinese scholars and environmentalists tried to warn the Chinese government on the environmental hazards that will occur due to the construction of the dam, and still the government could hear none. The conflict of the construction of three gorge dam went ahead to attract the attention of the global civic society. The campaign was carried through international media and activist, Probe international, a Canadian NGO, monitored the project since its planning phase and even launch their website “The Three Gorges probe “for publishing their analysis and reports. International Rivers Network (IRN) also ran campaigns throughout the USA criticizing the project. Human Rights in China in collaboration with the IRN pointed out the severe problem I regard to three gorge dam resettlement project. March 2003 they appealed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, protesting China’s violation of human rights in dam construction process (Lin, 2007). The endless effort of the two organizations succeeded to convince severely funders to withdraw their aid; this was a very significant step against ant three gorge dam campaigns. The political constraint made it difficult to mobilize the affected people in the beginning of construction of three gorge dam unlike the movement that was in India to protest he construction of Delhi dam. There are many similarities and differences between among the anti-dam protest mobilization in India and China. From the research it occurs that people from a democratic regime enjoys a favorable condition when it comes to protests mobilization as compared to people from an authoritarian regime. This explains why the Delhi large scale dam was not so much successful as compared to three gorge dam. This is because the people of India took part in decision making and the decision was to oppose the construction of the dam. The people of China on the other hand had no chance to give their opinion and due to the authoritarian government structure that was in place. Another significance of this research is that authoritarian regime consider protest as an obstruction to development, the protest in this type of government institution are very rare but when they occur they turn out to be very violent. Protest of construction of the Delhi dam was so rampant in India and this can be said to have a positive effect in a manner that the economy was subjected to sustain itself. It is the right of each citizen to have an opportunity to design their own sustainable future. The only way that this can be achieved is by the kind of political institution. The participation can be through freedom of speech or rule of law. In India where the economy was growing, protest movements against large scale construction of dams became successful because of such types of freedom from the government. In contrast to India, there were no justifiable and quantifiable protests over the construction of the three gorges dam. For this reason the Chinese government was able to complete the project. What is interesting is to watch how the Chinese government can keep itself from the demands of the Chinese citizens and the whole in any future dam construction. Conclusion Both China Three Gorges Dam and India Delhi Dam have revolved under heavy controversies as a result of conflicts between the government and the local communities. The attitude of the local population towards the development of the two dams was different from the government. The Indian and the Chinese governments supported the construction of the Delhi dam and the Three Gorges Dam respectively. The dams are constructed with the view of helping the country deal with the problems of flooding and provide clean energy (Kennedy, 2001). Prevention of flooding and clean energy was the core reason why the two governments supported the dams. However, the local communities were opposed to the construction of the dams because millions of people were displaced especially the farmers who depended on the fields for a living. Those who remained had to give up farming. On the quest to stop flooding, the Three Gorges Dam would cause flooding to more than12, 000 acres of field, as the water in the aquifer would rise up to 290 meters. The Delhi dam caused massive destruction of residents and acres of land but did not get completed to solve the flooding problems in India. Work cited Gleick, Peter H. Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, China. Water Brief 3, 2009. [pdf] Available at: http://www.worldwater.org/data20082009/WB03.pdf. Jenkins, J. Craig. Social Movements, Political Representation, and the State: An Agenda and Comparative Framework. In: Jenkins, J. Craig and Klandermans, Bert, eds. The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements. London: UCL Press, 1995. Ch.2, 1995. Li, R. 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