NEW DELHI. June 5: One of Indias leading environmentalists said on Saturday that a huge dam project in the Himalayan foothills could cause "unimaginable calamities' because of 111 location tn an earthquake-prone area. reports Reuter.

Planners of the Tehri Dam project in Uttar Pradesh state "completely ignored the long term economic, social, cultural

derial Bahaguna, a well-known activist, wrote in an article published to Indian newspapers to mark World Environment Dsy.

They have closed their eyes

to the obvious natural hazards which can destroy these structures and bring unimaginable calamities to people living downstream." he said.

Bahaguna has long been opposed to the 1.4 billton US dollar Tehri Dam. one of India's most ambitious hydroelectric projects.

His article appeared amid intense controversy in India over the social cost of huge irrigation projects, sparked by the deci ston of the government to end World Bank financing for a

India.

The World Bank had agreed to provide 530 mil Hon dollars in

grants and loans to build 30 large, 135 medium-sized and 3.000 small dams on the Narmada. India's fifth-largest

The government said In March that It would forgo the final 180 million dollar after ac cusing the World Bank of dithering about the financing.

The World Bank was to review the project in April because of widespread criticism that the project was an ecologl

The Tehri Dam, which will block the Bhagirathi river, a tributary of the Ganges, is scheduled for completion In

1997. It is expected to provide 2,400 megawatts of power to electricity-starved villages in the northern Indian plains.

Construction was briefly halted In 1991 after a devastat Ing earthquake ripped apart hillsides just north of Tehri, killing at least 1,400 people.

But the government allowed work on the project to continue after checking that the quake had not damaged the subsidiary dam or the diversion tunnels already built

•After the earthquake, the Mils have cracked and there are huge landslides." Bahaguna said. He said the landslides had blocked the Bhagirathi at »ev eralplaces.

The project has also come In for sharp criticism because it will displace tens of thousands of people. The town of Tehri. which has a population of 12,000 will be at he bottom of a 32O-metre-long (1,050-foot) reservoir when the project is completed.

The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) estimates that 85.800 people In the town and surrounding villages wilt be displaced by the Tehri Dam.

"Mass displacement of the hill people and forcing them to live in an alien environment is the most heinous crime towards humanity." Bahaguna wrote. He said people ousted from their homes by earlier dams built by the government not been reha bflltated.

Water Resources Minister Vidya Charan Shukla said on Friday that he would set up a committee to monitor ecological safeguards and the displacement of people in all his ministry's major projects.

But he added that India needed to harness all Its water resources, indicating that the government was not likely to call off the two irrigation projects on environmental grounds.