Hydel Project Near China Border Gets Green Clearance

Report By Y-Trenz

New Delhi — The Union Environment Ministry has granted environmental clearance to the 1,200 MW Kalai-II hydropower project in Arunachal Pradesh's Anjaw district, a strategically significant location close to the India-China border. The decision marks a major milestone for one of the Northeast's most closely watched infrastructure projects, moving it a step closer to construction after years of delays.

Project Overview

The Kalai-II Hydroelectric Project is a run-of-river scheme with pondage, proposed on the Lohit River near Hawai village in Anjaw district. The Lohit is a major tributary of the Brahmaputra, originating in the Tirap Phasi Ranges of eastern Tibet before entering India through the Kibitho area of Arunachal Pradesh. Unlike large-reservoir dams, a run-of-river project generates electricity by diverting a portion of the river's natural flow through turbines without impounding massive volumes of water, a design intended to make the project comparatively more environment-friendly while still enabling significant power generation.

The project will have an installed capacity of 1,200 MW, comprising six turbine units of 190 MW each and one unit of 60 MW, and is expected to generate approximately 4.85 terawatt-hours of electricity annually. Its infrastructure will include a 128.5-metre concrete gravity dam, upstream and downstream coffer dams, a diversion tunnel, an intake tunnel, pressure shafts, an underground powerhouse complex, a surge chamber and a tail race tunnel, with a planned reservoir capacity of 318.8 million cubic metres.

Estimated to cost Rs 14,176.26 crore, the project will be developed by THDC India Limited, formerly known as Tehri Hydro Development Corporation, in a joint venture with the Government of Arunachal Pradesh, which holds a 26% equity stake. Construction is expected to take 78 months, requiring supporting infrastructure such as roads, bridges and other facilities to be built alongside the dam itself.

The Clearance Process

The environmental clearance follows a recommendation made by the Union Environment Ministry's Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on river valley and hydroelectric projects, which cleared the Kalai-II proposal during a meeting held on December 19. The Environmental Impact Assessment report underpinning the clearance was prepared by WAPCOS Limited, a government-owned enterprise accredited as an EIA consultant. Ahead of that recommendation, the Arunachal Pradesh State Pollution Control Board had conducted a public hearing on the project on August 20, 2025, as part of the statutory process for stakeholder engagement, transparency and discussion of compensation and local employment benefits.

With environmental clearance now secured, the project must still obtain forest clearance before construction can begin in earnest. According to documents placed before the Ministry's Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), the project will require the diversion of 869.35 hectares of semi-evergreen forest land spread across the Namsai and Anjaw forest divisions, and is expected to result in the felling of 33,338 trees. A significant portion of this land, around 638 hectares, would ultimately be submerged under the reservoir created by the dam, while the remainder would be used for underground facilities, access roads, quarry sites and muck disposal zones. The FAC has reportedly recommended Stage-I, or "in-principle," forest clearance for the project, subject to compliance with a series of environmental safeguards and wildlife protection measures.

Environmental Concerns

The project's approval has not been without controversy. Environmentalists and local residents have raised concerns that the project's EIA documentation failed to adequately account for the presence of the white-bellied heron (Ardea insignis), a critically endangered species with fewer than 250 individuals estimated to survive in the wild. The bird prefers free-flowing riverine habitats with low disturbance and feeds mainly on fish in rapids — precisely the kind of undisturbed stretch of the Lohit River that the dam's construction and reservoir would alter. Conservation groups have called for the omission to be addressed through additional field studies and monitoring commitments before final clearances are issued.

In response to such concerns, authorities have indicated that specific mitigation measures will be mandated, including continuous monitoring of heron habitats, the creation of artificial nesting sites, and construction practices designed to minimise ecological disruption in sensitive stretches of the river.

Strategic and Economic Significance

Kalai-II is one of 13 stalled hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh that were revived through a coordinated push between the Centre and the state government, which in 2023 signed memoranda of agreement with central public sector undertakings to restart a combined capacity of over 12,700 MW of stalled hydropower capacity in the state. Beyond its energy contribution, the project is expected to generate around 1,700 direct jobs, with roughly half reserved for families affected by land acquisition, alongside opportunities for self-employment and ancillary business development in the region.

Once commissioned, the project is projected to provide Arunachal Pradesh with about Rs 318 crore worth of free power annually, along with Rs 2.2 crore a year for the state's Local Area Development Fund. The Arunachal Pradesh cabinet has also approved a 50% reimbursement of state GST on the project to improve its financial viability.

The project's location near the India-China border adds a strategic dimension beyond its energy and economic benefits. Officials have described the project as important not only for enhancing energy security in India's Northeast but also for strengthening border infrastructure — including roads and connectivity — in a sensitive frontier region. The development comes at a time when China's own upstream hydropower ambitions on the Brahmaputra, including its planned mega-dam project in Tibet, have drawn scrutiny in India over concerns about downstream water flow and ecological impact, lending added significance to India's efforts to build out its own hydropower capacity in the same river basin.

With environmental clearance now in hand, attention turns to the pending forest clearance and the compliance conditions attached to it, which will determine how soon construction activity can begin on the ground in Anjaw district.