Hydropower quest

The article, “ >Dams without responsibility ” (July 16), rightly highlighted the need to review our dam strategy across the country. Dams are an economic necessity for agriculture and power generation; a question of how we balance the needs of people with the environment which is most certainly affected when a free- flowing river is dammed. It is interesting to note that a few old dams in the U.S. which have outlived the purpose for which they were built, have been dismantled — giving a fresh lease of life to not only the river but also the diverse forms of life sustained by the river. Big dams are out and small dams are in. In the end, it is a question of how we manage to limit the impact of a dam on the environment and the people.

D.B.N. Murthy,

Bangalore

In 1955, I was selected as a cadet in the Prince of Wales Military College in Dehradun. Dehradun and the valley was completely green and clean then. Recently, I happened to visit my

alma mater and it was shocking to find a complete transformation, with large parts gouged out. It was not impossible to imagine the devastation of 2013.

V.V. Nair,

Manipal

The government must increasingly look to local solutions and get citizens to start delinking from the main energy grid. Solar energy is one such idea. The government should also examine OTEC/ocean thermal energy conversion which uses the temperature difference between cooler deep and warmer shallow or surface ocean waters to run a heat engine and produce electricity. Japan is a leader in this field. With the development of relations with Japan a priority for this government, why cannot such technology be looked at?

Adarsh Gupta,

New Delhi