Has Development in Northeast India Undermined Its Environmental Sustainability?
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Has Development in Northeast India Undermined Its Environmental Sustainability?
Atribh Deka
20 minutes ago
Urbanisation and infrastructure development policies seldom align with the natural lifecycles of rivers, forests and mountains.
Commuters on a waterlogged road after heavy rainfall, in Guwahati. Photo: PTI
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The Rising North East Investors Summit on May 23 sparked curiosity and optimism among entrepreneurs and investors in Northeast India as Prime Minister Modi unveiled a vision of seamless highways, cross-border bridges, and a Rs 27,000-crore semiconductor plant, positioning the region as India's new gateway to Southeast Asian markets.
However, an event in Arunachal Pradesh contrasted with this celebratory occasion. On the same day, in Arunachal Pradesh's Siang district, villagers torched bridges and protested, vowing that they will die for their lands, as they opposed the proposed 12,000 megawatt Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP), which they see as a threat to the community groves and floodplains.
In this context, the government's narrative of 'Northeast as India's new gateway to Southeast Asia' shows a hollowness when, just miles away from the announcement of the vision and development projects, the supposed beneficiaries are worried about the devastating prospect of a dam that could submerge their heritage and livelihoods.
There is no doubt that over the last decade, urbanisation and hydropower initiatives have boosted NER's industrial economy. This economic boost has also brought an environmental burden through forest clearance, riverbank erosion and polluted air.
This collision between industrialisation schemes and environmental degradation raises two important questions: Is economic development dependent on the sacrifice of living ecosystems? And whose progress is it that truly counts?
Infrastructure expansion
Since 2017, India's Northeast has undergone major infrastructural expansions. Most notable among them are the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' allocation of Rs 60,093 crore to construct 4,686 kms of new national highways under schemes like Bharatmala and the JICA-supported North East Road Network Connectivity Improvement Project, which will connect remote districts and establish new cross-border routes.
The North East Gas Grid, a 1,670 km pipeline costing Rs 9,265 crore, is now 84% complete and will supply industrial and household gas to all eight states. In Assam, new industrial parks at Tezpur, Tinsukia, Silchar and Hajo are expected to attract manufacturing by providing ready-made facilities. A major highlight is the construction of over a dozen flyovers in Guwahati between 2017 and 2024, built to ease congestion.
These recent infrastructure developments promise to rewire a region long marginalised within India's GDP, just 2.8% as per the 2023-24 stats. Financial targets include doubling Assam's US$69 billion Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) by 2030, cutting the national logistics costs from 14% of GDP to a more competitive 8-9 percent, and positioning the Northeast as a land gateway for an India-ASEAN trade boom from US$125 billion to US$200 billion. Employment projections estimate the creation of 30,000 jobs at the semiconductor plant, and hundreds of thousands of ancillary roles, in plans to reduce the persistent challenge of youth out-migration from the region.
However, delays in projects, rugged terrain and land-acquisition disputes expose a recurring 'execution deficit.' Cross-border corridors, like the India-Myanmar-Thailand Highway, may remain super sensitive to geopolitical volatility, while local skill shortages and environmental concerns further complicate implementation risks.
Thus, policy promises of connectivity, industrial diversification, and improved livelihoods hinge less on headline investment figures than on robust governance and genuine capacity-building at the grassroots level.
Environmental effects of development in northeast India
The more concrete networks of roads, bridges, and pipelines are extended in the NER, the more environmental deficits are recorded. Between 2013 and 2023, for instance, the Northeast lost a staggering 3,132 sq. km of natural forest, an area larger than Mumbai, due to the expansion of roads, railways, and hydropower projects piercing through the once-unbroken forests.
New highway corridors such as NH-715A (Bagrakote–Pakyong) in Sikkim and the four-laning of NH-27 (Nagaon–Holongi) in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh have necessitated the diversion of forest land authorised under the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. The Dibang Multipurpose Project and the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project in Arunachal Pradesh threaten riparian habitats, which will affect the migration of avian species and disrupt ecological flows in the Siyom and Subansiri tributaries.
Commercial plantations expose slightly different issues that don't encourage the continuance of indigenous sustainability-driven lifestyles and traditions. For instance, although Tripura's rubber monocultures and Meghalaya's eucalyptus concession programmes add to the 'tree cover' gains, they partly fail to replace native dipterocarp and bamboo forests.
Policy interventions, like the mandatory Compensatory Afforestation under the 2002 Amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, have, in practice, fallen short of their stated objectives. The traditional jhum (shifting cultivation) systems, regulated by the Meghalaya Jhum Land Lease Policy (2011) and Manipur's Community Rights under the Forest Rights Act (2006), are dismissed as backward, even though extended resting cycles are scientifically proven to maintain soil fertility.
India's climate policies, in this context, reflect a blind reliance on 'high-modernist' methods, assuming that a universal, technocratic formula for land governance applies across diverse ecologies. Such one-size-fits-all prescriptions not only undermine the indigenous and proven agricultural methods but also erode the socio-ecological practices of jhum plots, sacred groves, and shifting fields that have, for generations, sustained Northeast India's rich biodiversity.
Guwahati presents a uniquely peculiar case
In Guwahati, plans for a flyover along the GNB Road threatened to cut down century-old trees around the historic Dighalipukhuri in November 2024. In response, concerned protestors and journalists filed a PIL in the Gauhati high court. The Assam PWD then refiled an affidavit confirming that the flyover's ramps would be realigned to begin at Lamb Road and Rabindra Bhawan, sparing the Dighalipukhuri banks and the surrounding trees.
The ongoing unprecedented flooding in Guwahati is further evidence of the environmental toll directly affecting citizens. The city recorded an alarming 111 mm of rainfall in 24 hours, breaking a 67-year-old record, which triggered deadly landslides that claimed at least five lives. Prolonged power cuts, which were a safety precaution, disrupted communication and paralysed daily lives, exposing urban vulnerabilities. The chronic waterlogging in Jorabat, 'partially influenced' by unregulated development upstream in Meghalaya, forced the two states' chief ministers Conrad Sangma and Himanta Biswa Sarma to meet for an urgent inter-state policy action.
All this, ironically, undermines the grand vision of transforming Guwahati, the gateway to the Northeast, into a 'smart city,' where there's no proper drainage system that can respond to runoff from the surrounding hills.
Prospects for sustainable development
Despite climate policy interventions, the National Mission for a Green India, and the Forest Rights Act's community protections, these frameworks have been systematically outpaced by the region's push for roads, dams and industrial corridors.
Environmental impact assessments are often fast-tracked or skipped when flagship ventures, like the North East Gas Grid or the semiconductor hub, loom large in New Delhi's development narrative. As Arunachal villagers now blockade the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project and floods affect thousands, the gap between the vision for development and sustainable survival could not be more evident.
Urbanisation and infrastructure development policies seldom align with the natural lifecycles of rivers, forests and mountains. Perhaps true progress will come when NER's next chapters are built not only in concrete, but also in the living, breathing landscapes that have sustained this region for centuries.
Atribh Deka is a graduate in Political Science (Honours) from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, and is currently pursuing his Master's of Arts in Media Governance.
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