This whole tectonic plate is shifting continuously towards south. For many generations now, every 300 years, Himalayas witness a heavy vibration. Kangra (Himanchal) earthquake of 1905 was a heavy shake of 7.8 but no ruptures of tectonic were reported. This earthquake never had a single epicenter, instead a number of landmass chunks moved; this signifies the insubstantiality of Himalayan landmasses. The situation here is not like some volcanically formed mountains that have a much stronger binding and heavy earthquake bearing capacity with the overlapping layers of lava. Himalayas are formed by this huge South Asian chunk pressing in the central ridgeline where many non-monolithic landmass chunks are sandwiched in numerous layers for the past 40 million years. This is the main reason for such rich flora/fauna, diversity in soil/rock patterns along with the 8 huge and many small vibrations that Himalayas witnessed  ever since the happening of 1897 earthquake in Assam. The plate on which Tehri Dam is built is reasonably damaged. We have to understand this project specifically in detail to understand hill development issues in wider perspective. It has already been calculated that age of this dam will reduce up to one-fourth due to deposition of silt. Landslides/land shifts due to overflows are just a few major consequences, it has affected biodiversity in heavy amounts, non-friendly vegetation has already started to emerge, and the very purpose of sustaining life was also lost. Water is a sharp blade; it flows over the rocks for generations converting them into sand and silt. Any river we see in the valley has stood and formed at a much higher altitude. Every river is in a process, seeking for the center of gravity and vanishes like ‘Saraswati’ in the course of time. During this settling process of river, numerous small scale/unnoticeable landslides keep on happening and supportive/refilling streams joins the river. Wherever there is a loose mass, river widens up and narrows on the hard mass. These small streams also divide landmass into large dollop which might prolapse. Height of water is the main reason for land movement. Out of 20 dams having height from 150 meter to 250 meter, 6 have failed while from all the reservoirs with height less than 120 meter, only 6% were affected. In Tehri, landmass consists mostly of Phyllite rocks. These rocks fragments and turn into powder easily. It is one of the most fragile rocks holding India’s highest dam. In Himalayan range, out of 11 dams, 9 are in earthquake prone areas. We had already advanced quite a bit in geology before these were built. The path of Bhagirathi River consists of a number of prolapsed huge landmasses, the maximum of which are alone in Tehri. The nail pressure this water is applying continuously ruptures the land while silt filling also occurs.  Low height mud check dams are only solutions if any are going to be built in Himalayas, that too, for sure not in Tehri. In case of any disaster (on site, disasters due to this irresponsible construction are discussed later in this paper), this land cannot be restored, people won’t feel safe for themselves and in toxic environment. Tehri had special gravitational & magnetic fields due to heavy prolapsed masses. These forces are adversely affected due to this huge amount of percolating and reserved water. At the very base there is 20 meter wide prolapse crack. From the total of 10,000 Dams, 460 went through disasters, out of which 140 were fully destroyed. All of these were on a considerably tougher rock echelons. The development strategies adopted here are on western lines and methodologies which might not work effectively. Various researchers, geologists and scientists had already denied the fact that construction of this dam will be successful and sustainable. This is where the political and monitory aspects add up. A report with all the consequences of dam was leaked due to administrative slip. Thus a new strategy had to be articulated, a committee was established, which had to give a green indicator to this edifice. Now, the false data was created again, with the false statement of consequences. Very first officials involved in Tehri Hydro Power Complex demanded ‘Ganga Development Authority’, which was supposed to look into the development issues related to river till Rishikesh, this authority was never created because no one coveted queries counter to incomplete statistics. Henry H Thomas (author: ‘The engineering of large Dams’ and a well-known dam engineer) was initially in support of the large dams, later, he befitted himself in contradiction of these heavy artificial lakes. According to him, if bit of common sense is applied, it is clear that this dam is a threat to India; it might turn into a natural disaster that no one can imagine. He also believes that if there is just 1% of snag unanswered, such projects shouldn’t be carried out. If we turn the pages of political situations back then, the question of construction of this dam is pretty much clear. Greed and Terror are two more factors that attach to the wicked face of hill development with the development marked in human interaction zone. The initiation of this concern within the local people came up when an article under the head: ‘Super Dams and Bitter Lakes’ was published on August, 1983 in Readers Digest. People were also reluctant to leave their roots as the reimbursement & resettlement was not reasonable. For the 20 acres of land ₹40,000 were reimbursed which was not at all sufficient to buy even 2 acres of land in nearby townships like Rishikesh or Dehradun back then. Even the pockets of land reimbursed to them were of very poor quality and this laborious job of making this terrain cultivable, carried out for generations was fully disregarded.

It’s been decades now, since we have this killing machine lying like a sword on our neck. We may say that lack of leadership and local political strength is the reason for such developments. Strong leadership which existed in this region was removed forcefully back then. ‘Hurry’ and ‘short-term’ approach finds an easier existence in the democracy. Identity loss, character loss, adaptation and migration were clearly enforced upon hills here. Russia proposed a handsome amount of help to development of nuclear power plants in India. This development was rejected by physicist Raja Ramanna. Now, a new proposal was needed to acquire this money therefor this whole hoopla was set up. The drowned area of 40sqm had 92 well sustained villages. Much more than 70,000 people were migrated. The silt, from the rivers, Bhagarathi & Milangana is much more than any other river and with these stats; we cannot assume life of this dam to be more than 40 years. In Bhakra, the ratio of strongest to the weakest rocks was 1:2 while this ratio in Tehri was 1:20. During construction of Bhakra Dam, the content of silt coming from the river was 42.9 metre3 per kilometer2 which later increased to 72.9 meter3 per kilometer2. Similarly in Ramganga initially it was 42.9 which increased up to 179.5 meter3 per kiliometer2. This gives the broad-spectrum idea about reduction in age of both these dams. Compared to these, Bhagirathi and Milangana carry much larger quantities of silt, therefore 40 years is the maximum age we can consider. The major reason for disturbance in short term approaches like Maneri-Bhali was silt deposition. This project came down in year 78 and later halted in year 85. The example of reservoirs built with incomplete knowledge include Srisailam dam in Andhra, Kali Hydro Power Project in Karnataka, Pong Dam in Himanchal, Swarnrekha Project in Bihar, etc. All of these projects destroyed settlements at a larger scale. Even disasters like Kadam(1958), Panchet(1961), Nanak Sagar(1967- though it is a low height mud-walled reservoir), Dantiwada(1973), Arun and Hinglo(1978) were the fresh examples when Tehri was commissioned. Damages done by these are not yet restored. Only due to geological reasons, 117 dams in US, 4 in Russia, 11 in Australia, 7 In Algeria, 7 in Canada,  10 in UK had already been destroyed till this this time. Henri Thomas mentioned in his book that there is no way till date which can predict a Disaster. Koyna Dam incident of 67, in which 200 people died and more than 12000 were homeless was a new instance back then. Though Himalayas are much more fragile and sensitive than this region, it has more tectonic movements, quite a bit of quakes are seen here, sill this huge axe was placed here.

A nearer look at brick and reinforced cement concrete, two of the most extensively used ingredients of the industrial age, launches the inappropriate assessment of the constituents we select to construct with, underpinning the effectiveness of the mystic forms of instituting environmental equilibriums. An adjacent understanding contrasting the ordinary method accepted for every constituent of a structure is an illuminating maneuver. This omnipresent performer in the construction drama- THE BURNT CLAY BRICK. This tiny component of the construction industry which has for periods, been most misinterpreted. Today, the brick is considered a construction component having widespread use and criteria. The users and builders do not have a cognizance of the factors such as costs (heavy increment solely due to transportation) and unsustainability. This is simply an adaptation that traveled into hills somewhere from northwest. Onsite casted materials are only solutions through which more holistic settlements can be achieved.

Another construction material that controls the building productiveness the world over is Reinforced Cement Concrete. RCC is measured as the principal of human attainment in the realm of construction constituents. It is relevant to query ones’ unsighted and misdirected confidence in it as a magical formula. In order to assess RCC, it is essential to concisely go into what may have been the motive for its expansion. In the past, stone was the most resilient material known to man in hills. However, moving, control and treating it, were weighty and required a huge amount of work contribution. Also, the obtainable dimension of the boulder was a limitation in terms of design potentials.

With the fast progresses throughout the industrial revolution and the development of cement as a rapid setting bonding agent, it became likely to crush stone and remold it, thus making it workable in the formation of a diversity of arrangements. Flexibility was, consequently, the main benchmark and to this amount the development and practice of concrete is defensible. Reinforced Cement Concrete is an development that forces regular constituents to perform in a method that we desire from them to behave. Just as stone has the characteristic superiority of being able to take substantial crushing loads, the derivative of stone as used in concrete, has marvelous abilities of repelling crushing loads. It is only when we try to use this material as regular blocks and drive the material to re-join in contradiction of its usual properties, that we encounter a sequence of glitches that continually complex themselves. In the place of reflecting and inspecting wherever we may have mistaken, we struggle to find answers without inspecting the base. Characteristically, RCC consists of cement as an adhesive to bind sand and stone aggregate to create reconstructed stone. The coarse sand is the in-between, used to fill empty space, and the effort is to once again attain the strong point of the stone that we crushed to initiate with. The steel strengthening is brought together in the lower areas of the RCC, to counterbalance the tension produced while RCC is used in a smooth form. In the higher areas, when understood in the cross section of the beam, concrete is acting in compression and answering to its characteristic potentials. The problem, therefore, lies in the lower part of the RCC, which is actuality prepared to tolerate tension – in contradiction of its usual behavioral capabilities. It is not as if stone is unqualified of resisting tension. Flat stone slabs have been used in Hindu temples to roof considerable spans and the form of building adopted was on the basis of the inherent qualities of the material. Stone slabs were also used as roofing material. For example the flat stone slabs, in our traditional forms of building, were used only where sedimentary stone existed. In areas where metamorphic or volcanic rock existed, compressive constructions were done.