Kalai-II hydel project gets forest nod amid White-Bellied Heron concerns

📌 Summary:

• Environment Ministry''s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) has granted in-principle forest clearance to the 1,200 MW Kalai-II hydroelectric project
• Project is on the Lohit River in Anjaw district, Arunachal Pradesh — bordering China
• Developer: THDC India Limited; project cost: Rs 14,176.26 crore
• Project is a run-of-the-river type, with a 128.5 m concrete gravity dam and an underground powerhouse
• 869 hectares of forest to be cleared; including 638 hectares submergence in Anjaw and Namsai forest divisions
• Lohit River is a key habitat for the critically endangered White-Bellied Heron — one of the rarest birds in the world
• Compensatory afforestation will be carried out in Madhya Pradesh because Arunachal Pradesh is "hilly and forested" with forest cover over two-thirds of its geography
• Trade-off in focus: strategic & energy security in a border state vs irreversible loss of critical habitat

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 Environment — biodiversity vs energy trade-offs, EIA/forest clearance process, run-of-river hydropower; GS2 Governance — Forest (Conservation) Act 1980; GS1 Geography — Lohit, NE rivers.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• White-Bellied Heron (Ardea insignis) — IUCN status: Critically Endangered; among the world''s rarest birds (~60 mature individuals globally); found in Bhutan, India (Arunachal, Assam), Myanmar
• Lohit River — tributary of the Brahmaputra; rises in eastern Tibet; flows through Arunachal Pradesh
• THDC India Ltd — joint venture, now subsidiary of NTPC
• Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) — under MoEFCC; recommends forest clearances under Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980
• Compensatory Afforestation governed by the CAMPA Act, 2016 — but normally in the same state; cross-state CA (here MP) is an exception

🔑 Key Term: Run-of-the-River (RoR) Hydropower — hydropower projects that use river flow with little to no water storage. Lower reservoir footprint than storage dams, but at high heads can still submerge habitat.