In Ladakh, a massive energy project is shrouded in mystery

Early May is a busy time in Ladakh’s Changthang region. This is when pastoralists prepare to migrate with their livestock to the green highland pastures in the Pang area for the summer. Until the onset of winter in October, they remain on the move, grazing their sheep and goats where pastures are available.

But since last year, the Changpas, as the pastoralists are locally known, have been anxious. They fear that their migration routes will be affected by a sprawling 13-gigawatt integrated renewable energy project slated to come up in Pang, which they fear could lead to their pasturelands being fenced off.

“We spend six months of summer in the Pang area,” Lundup Gyatso, sarpanch of Samad Rockchan village, told Scroll in mid May as he wrapped up material he would need for the coming months, during the migration. “If they take the entire pastureland, our livestock will have nothing to eat and will perish. As a result, Changpas will vanish.”

The project is expected to generate 9 gigawatts of solar power and 4 gigawatts of wind power. This electricity will be transmitted 713 km from Ladakh to Haryana, where it will be integrated into the national grid. A government firm has been given the responsibility of laying down the transmission lines, but it is not yet clear whether the renewable energy project will be set up by the government or awarded to a private firm.

It is not only residents of Changthang who are concerned about this project. In the early months of 2024, about 150 km north of Gyatso’s home, thousands began gathering in the capital city of Leh to demand full statehood for Ladakh, and protection under the sixth schedule of the Indian Constitution. In March, one of the protests planned was a “Pashmina March”, to demand clarity about matters such as whether pastures in Changthang were being taken over for developmental projects by large industrialists.

The same month, Sonam Wangchuk, founding director of the non-profit Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, made national and international headlines when he initiated a “climate fast” to demand statehood for Ladakh and inclusion in the sixth schedule. On October 1, as Wangchuk and 150 others marched to Delhi to draw attention to these demands, the police detained them at the national capital’s borders.

In Ladakh, the demand for inclusion in the sixth schedule and the desire to protect ecology are closely linked. Inclusion in the sixth schedule allows a “tribal area” to become an “autonomous district”, in which regional councils can be set up with power to independently execute legislative, judicial, executive, and financial decisions in certain spheres.

Ladakh already has such regional councils – one in Leh and another in Kargil. These bodies, known as autonomous hill development councils, were set up under the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Act, 1997, while the region was part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. For years, these councils had powers and responsibilities in matters such as the use of certain tracts of land and the preservation of the region’s environment.

But after the Bharatiya-Janata-Party-led government at the Centre split Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories in 2019, bringing Ladakh directly under its control, locals argue that the councils have been considerably disempowered, and that decisions have become largely centralised in the office of the lieutenant governor.

This was evident when Scroll spoke to hill council members about the renewable energy project. Asked about specific aspects of the project, they were unable to provide clear answers. Although they denied that the Union government was unilaterally taking all decisions related to the project, their descriptions of their own roles suggested their work was limited to representing the concerns of the local people to the lieutenant governor’s office. For instance, Karma Namdak, a BJP councillor of Korzok constituency, where the project falls, expressed the hope that the lieutenant governor would assent to the people’s demands.

Ladakh’s “hill council currently happens to be controlled by BJP”, Wangchuk pointed out in a conversation with Scroll in May. The BJP’s control over the council explained why the members were failing to even do “their job in representing the people”, he said.

There is a wider anxiety in Ladakh about the Centre pursuing development projects in the ecologically fragile region at the cost of its environment and people. The opacity surrounding the renewable energy project and the lack of consultation with locals is contributing to this anxiety, as well as fuelling protest movements in this sensitive border region.

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The renewable energy project is coming up at a time when the Changpas’ pasturelands are already under immense pressure – climate has shrunk grass cover, and military tensions between India and China have cut access to the vast lands.

The first time that people in Ladakh heard about the project was when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 2020, spoke about setting up a 7.5 GW solar park in the region.

By November 2021, the plan had expanded into one for a 10 GW project, in Pang, requiring 160 sq km of land.

As it stands now, the project is envisioned as a “hybrid renewable energy park” encompassing solar, wind and battery energy storage systems, according to a response by the ministry of new and renewable energy to a question asked by Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi in March 2023. Along with Pang, pastureland for the project will be acquired from Debrik and Kharnak. The total land requirement is estimated at around 250 sq km – twice the size of the union territory of Chandigarh.

In August 2024, in response to a Lok Sabha question, the ministry stated that “soil investigation and DPR preparation” of the 13 GW project was “underway”.

Meanwhile, work on creating transmission infrastructure that is a prerequisite for the renewable energy project is proceeding at a faster pace. Powergrid, a public sector enterprise and the country’s largest electric power transmission utility has been chosen as the implementing agency. The Centre has committed to providing Rs 8,300 crore for the transmission project, or 40% of its cost, and Powergrid will raise the remainder of the funds needed through debt and equity.

Further, for the transmission lines and the substations, “environmental screening” and “social screening”, which are processes of the initial assessment stage of a project, have been completed.

According to latest estimates, tenders for the transmission project will be awarded by March 2025, and the project will be completed five years after that.

But while some details are known about the transmission project, no information is publicly available yet about the entity that will develop the solar and wind park itself. Typically in India, public and private developers win renewable energy projects through a reverse competitive bidding process, the results of which are publicly announced. That is, they offer bids for the lowest tariff at which they can supply power from the plants to the government.

As a nodal agency, the Solar Energy Corporation of India calls for bids for solar projects. If a project with a large generating capacity is involved, bids are often broken down for smaller capacities over different phases for the project. Once the project starts generating electricity, distribution companies purchase power from the company at that rate. So far, the ministry of new and renewable energy has not announced any information about the bidding process or its winner for the 13 GW plant.

On August 15, Scroll filed queries under the Right to Information Act to the environment ministry and the ministry of new and renewable energy, seeking details about the project, such as the total area of land to be acquired, the sites that had been identified and the results of the environmental impact assessments. On August 19, both applications were transferred to the Solar Energy Corporation of India. On September 17, the corporation responded that “this information does not pertain to this Public Authority”.

If neither the renewable energy ministry nor the solar corporation have information about the project, who does? On the ground, even the chairman of the Leh hill council, Tashi Gyalson, was unable to provide us with a specific response about how much land will be acquired and where. When asked about this, Gyalson said that he “could not recall”.

“Till now, the government of India has sanctioned the laying down of heavy-duty transmission lines only,” said Gyalson. To his knowledge, he added, the process of installing solar panels “will start after 2028-’29. Even that is not certain yet because the transmission lines will take several years to complete.”

Locals told Scroll that consultations with them had so far been minimal, limited to just one meeting held by the revenue department in 2023. Gyatso was one of the attendees. Among the demands that he put forward at the meeting, and also submitted in writing to the hill development council office in Leh, were that irrigation facilities should be set up in certain areas to develop new pastures in lieu of the pastures acquired by the renewable energy project.

“If the project is coming up on our land it should benefit us also,” Gyatso said.

Other demands included that “at least 2-3% of the annual earnings made by the project” be paid to the village, Gyatso said. Further, he noted, jobs created by the project, both skilled as well unskilled, should go to locals. “They should also build shelters for nomads who use these pastures in summers,” he said. “It gets very difficult during rain in makeshift tents.” As of now, there has been no official response from the administration to these demands.

Gyalson denied that the decisions pertaining to the renewable energy project were being taken by the Centre through the lieutenant governor. “They have completely left it to the council to handle everything and have promised to meet all the demands of the council,” said Gyalson, who unsuccessfully contested on a BJP ticket in the recent Lok Sabha polls. “We have handled it very authoritatively.” He added that in multiple meetings with the union government and union territory administrations, he has raised the concerns of the pastoralists to ensure that “their livelihoods and traditional practices should not be disturbed”.

But Karma Namdak, a BJP councillor of Korzok constituency, where the project falls, told Scroll that while the hill council was aware of the people’s concerns, and the memorandum of understanding between Powergrid and the council had been drafted, the demands pertaining to compensation and employment were yet to be fulfilled.

Changthang, a cold desert situated 4,500 metres above sea level, is home to the endangered snow leopard, the vulnerable Urial sheep and black necked crane. Its plateaus, undulating slopes, streams and grasslands, are crucial resources for herders to graze their sheep, goats and yaks in the summer. According to the 2011 census, Changthang has a population of a little more than 13,000, the majority of whom are Changpas. Community members are predominantly rearers of pashmina sheep, the wool of which is renowned globally.

“If our pasture is gone, it will mean our livestock won’t have food to eat in summers,” said 49-year-old Sonam Yashi, a Changpa from Thukje. “We may have to give up on our traditional profession of rearing livestock.”

The project needs a large amount of land. While 200 acres of land in Pang and 300 acres of land in Haryana’s Kaithal are expected to be acquired for the terminals for Powergrid’s transmission lines, an additional 61,000 acres are to be acquired in Ladakh for the hybrid renewable energy park, as the minister for the new and renewable energy noted in response to a Rajya Sabha question in March 2023.

The pastoralists also worry that the takeover of such a large tract of land for the project could create conflicts in the use of the land amongst the Changpas.

Currently, pastoralists use common pasture lands. Traditional rules allow residents of different Changpa villages to access and use different areas of these pastures.

But because land has been earmarked for the solar and wind project, the land available for grazing will shrink, increasing the likelihood of conflicts. “No one will allow us to enter their pastures. It’s like a control line and we can’t just cross into pastures allocated to another village,” explained Yashi, a pastoralist. “If someone crosses into other pastures, it will result in a fight.”

Currently, this use of land is determined by the traditional “goba system”. This is a system of self-governance in Ladakh that runs parallel to panchayats – goba representatives, also known as lambardars, coordinate cultural and social gatherings, resolve conflicts, and ensure upkeep and maintenance of irrigation canals. In Changthang, they also play an additional role specific to pastoralism – they maintain lists of pasture lands, the number of livestock with families, make decisions about migration timings, and allocate or withdraw access to pasture lands among migratory herders.

As one report noted, “Traditionally, the goba was supposed to have substantial knowledge of issues relating to land, water use, agricultural and pastoral cycles, socio-cultural aspects including customs, rituals and festivals, and other relevant details of the village.”

The delicate balance that the goba representatives strive to maintain will be upset by the proposed energy project, experts said. “Like in the case of climate change, when pastures are not behaving the same way, then gobas have gotten together to resolve the issue,” said Ashish Kothari, an environmentalist and co-founder of the non-profit Kalpvriksh, who has also worked in Ladakh. “It is something that is possible for small-scale changes, but with this sort of massive incursion, it’s hard to say if gobas would actually be able to manage that kind of massive shifts.”

Goba representatives that Scroll spoke with said that no consultations had been held with them so far. Tsewang Delak, the 40-year-old goba of Thukje village, said, “If they come to seek my opinion, I will say it will be a loss to us because everyone here is a shepherd. To continue rearing them without pasture will be immensely difficult.”

Other functions of the goba system have also been undermined. In some parts of Ladakh, the representatives also helped government officials in collecting revenue for government land cultivated by tenants, as well as in maintaining revenue records. Kothari noted that gobas would also have an informal but important say in “what existing lands should be diverted for what type of work”. But since 2019, when Ladakh became a union territory, Kothari said, “functions and decisions regarding land have gotten centralised with the UT administration”. This, in effect, has “certainly undermined the role of the gobas.” He added, “Earlier a lot of those decisions had to go through the goba. Now apparently, it’s often the district collector who decides.”

Tashi Gyalson told Scroll that the project was not going to take up all of the pastureland used by the Changpas. “We are not taking the plains only, we are also using the slopes of mountains,” he said. “Their actual pasture lands will not be hit.”

The March 2023 reply by the minister of new and renewable energy to the question in the Rajya Sabha noted that according to a preliminary route survey of transmission lines, no protected areas were involved in solar projects in Ladakh, and that therefore, clearances from state and national wildlife authorities were “not envisaged at this stage”.

But a wildlife expert working in the area explained that there are currently “grey areas about where the boundaries of the wildlife sanctuaries are” in Changthang. Since 2022, the Ladakh administration has been discussing the need to rationalise the boundaries of two wildlife sanctuaries – Changthang and Karakoram. This process entails the proper demarcation of boundaries of these sanctuaries.

“For all practical purposes,” said the expert, who requested anonymity, “the upcoming solar project is very much within the wildlife sanctuary, but there are legal processes ongoing to ratify the boundaries.”

The development of the solar plant in Pang seemed “ironical” he said, since other development work in the same area, such as the building of roads and installation of electricity poles were “denied to the communities living there by citing that this is the wildlife sanctuary”.

Fears of threats to the region’s wildlife are exacerbated by recent discussions about the rationalisation process. Specifically, in 2023, the Wildlife Institute of India – the body given the task of completing the rationalisation – informed Ladakh’s lieutenant governor that “locations crucial for economic and social development in these areas have been identified and left out from the wildlife area”.

Regardless of whether the upcoming project will fall within or outside the Changthang sanctuary, wildlife experts explained that diverting thousands of acres of the high-altitude grassland would spell disaster for the region’s flora and fauna.

“There will be site-level impact of where the solar panels would come, and also dispersed impacts of where the transmission lines would come up,” said Munib Khanyari, a program manager with Nature Conservation Foundation, whose work is focused in Ladakh.

Khanyari noted that Pang in particular, falls on the Changpas’ migratory route, and is an important site since it also has water sources. He added that the grasslands are home to the Tibetan wild ass, the near-threatened mountain sheep known as argali, and the blue sheep, which is native to the high Himalayas, as well as to wolves and sand foxes. “A lot of the wildlife here is migratory and seasonality changes which areas are used by which species,” he said. “The Changthang grasslands are a supremely important summer ground for both Changpas and wildlife.” He added that the grasslands are also important carbon stocks for the region – that is, they help absorb and store carbon from the environment.

Further, experts are concerned about the large amount of water the project will require. A 2023 report noted the district collector’s observations, that because the landscape is dusty, there was likely to be a “considerable burden on natural resources, particularly water”, which would be needed for the regular cleaning of solar panels. This is particularly important since a recent study states that in the last few decades, glacier melt water has “decreased significantly” in Leh district, which includes Changthang. Kothari explained another concern about the project – the disposal of the large number of solar panels upon the end of their life, or when they suffer damages.

According to Gyalson, some of these issues were discussed during negotiations over the conditions of the memorandum of understanding.“We have categorically agreed on the terms that the disposal of the e-waste, for example the batteries, the solar panels, all that waste will be taken out from Ladakh,” Tashi Gyalson.“Besides, the government will also help us in setting up a recycling plant.”

Under the law, hill councils have the powers to take decisions pertaining to the setting up and functioning of renewable energy projects in their territories. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Act, 1997, states that among the matters to be controlled and deliberated on by the council are “non-conventional energy” and “allotment, use and occupation of land” .

The councils, which have 26 members directly elected through territorial constituencies and four nominated by the government from minority communities, were intended to empower Ladakhi people and give them the power to make decisions for the region’s development.

In August 2023, the advisor to the lieutenant governor chaired a meeting with the Leh hill council to discuss the developments in the Pang renewable energy project – on the agenda were matters such as the potential land parcels that had been identified for it.

The council highlighted its demand for local employment. While discussing the memorandum of understanding, Tashi Gyalson said, he raised a demand that “100% opportunity will be given to the locals in terms of skilled or unskilled jobs” – he recounted that the lieutenant governor, as well as the ministry of new and renewable energy, had assured the hill council that this demand would be fulfilled.

Locals however, are wary of the promise of employment. “Let’s say the government promises jobs to people. But will it be able to give jobs to everyone in my family?” asked 69-year-old Stan Tundup, whose three sons and their many children all work as herders. “Will they give jobs to each one of them?”

Yashi, his neighbour, underlined another problem with the promise. “They have talked about jobs, but what will we get when we don't have any knowledge and education?” he said, “We need educated people for jobs.”

Locals are unconvinced that the hill council will take up such concerns in a dedicated manner with the administration. Since the BJP won the elections to the hill council, the members have been “under pressure or have more regard for their bosses in Delhi,” Wangchuk said, and hence have not been raising issues of the people who could be impacted by the large-scale solar and wind project.

Political leaders have also argued earlier that the hill councils had greater autonomy when Ladakh was part of Jammu and Kashmir. Among the first demands that Ladakh’s political leaders raised after it became a union territory in 2019 was the framing of business rules that would clearly delineate the powers and functions of hill councils and the union territory administration. The rules have not been framed yet. Later that year, the home ministry delegated financial powers, such as over most development work, and some taxes, which were earlier under the hill councils, to the lieutenant governor.

A hill council member who requested anonymity explained that with the lieutenant governor now being the “topmost officer”, even if the hill councils had different visions for the union territory, “all the other visions will be bulldozed, they are irrelevant”. He added, “It leads to contradictions. The ultimate say has to be of the council, because council is the local public elected representative.”