Manipur’s push for dams threatens local ecology and communities

“Ngamu, pengba, ngaton or khabak, ngakra …” Tongbram Ahongjao names fish varieties that have gone missing from his environment over the past 40 years. A sexagenarian resident of Thanga, an island village inside Loktak, the largest freshwater lake of northeastern India located in Manipur state, he has seen the lake area change. “Moirang phou, kakching phou, chimlei, tao thabi…,” he continues, speaking of rice varieties that disappeared from the lowlands around the lake. To be fair, the lowlands disappeared in the first place.

At some mythological time, Poubi Lai, the giant, dragon-headed python, which lived under the waters of the Loktak lake, ate one man every night, until King Kabui Salang Maiba killed it with a trick, goes the legend. For centuries, Poubi Lai symbolised disaster at the community level for the Loktak people.

Then, four decades ago, in 1983, disaster came in the shape of a hydropower project, say the local people – the Ithai barrage on Manipur (or Imphal) river that uses Loktak as the reservoir. As of March 2022, the Loktak multipurpose project is Manipur’s only functional hydropower project, with an installed capacity of 105 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and is Manipur’s main source of power.