Fresh Dikrong erosion sparks fear among Lakhimpur villagers

North Lakhimpur, Nov 16: Krishna Rajkhowa (42), a farmer from No. 2 Pokadol village under Bihpuria Revenue Circle in Lakhimpur district, still remembers the terror of 2004. He was just 20 when a massive flood forced his entire joint family to flee after the Dikrong river swallowed vast stretches of cropland and houses in villages such as Madhupur, Bholukaguri, and Dohghoriya under Dhunaguri Gaon Panchayat. That disaster, unmatched in its scale and destruction, uprooted thousands and reshaped lives overnight.

For Krishna’s family, the loss was huge – 6.784 hectares of ancestral cropland vanished into the river within three days, compelling them to relocate to the left bank of Dikrong in the Pokadol area under Pub-Dikrong Gaon Panchayat. After more than 20 years of rebuilding their lives through sustainable farming, Krishna and many others now find themselves facing the same old threat again.

The river they escaped is once more eroding its banks and this time on the side they believed was safe. The cause remains unchanged: the release of reservoir water from NEEPCO’s hydroelectric dam on the Ranganadi, channelled into the Dikrong.

North East Electrical Power Corporation (NEEPCO)’s 405 MW Panyor Hydro Electric Power (PHEP) plant on the Panyor (Ranganadi) in Yazhali, Arunachal Pradesh, diverts water through a 10-kilometre tunnel at its Doimukh powerhouse into the Dikrong. The release of up to 160 cubic metres per second (cumecs) has intensified flooding events along the river, accelerating bank erosion and increasing river braiding in the region.

The braiding on the left bank from Gandhiya to Pokadol created new sediment-rich patches that displaced families had turned into farmlands. Krishna has successfully cultivated an orchard of apple jujube on one bigha, while his elder brother Prasanta grows mustard and pulses nearby.

But the release of reservoir water at night during the winter, when NEEPCO opens turbines to meet peak power demand, raises water levels without warning, triggering fresh erosion that now creeps toward their croplands.

These daily fluctuations have become routine. Water released in the evenings surges downstream in the dark, and by morning, villagers often find chunks of their fields gone.

This year, Dhunti Das (27) and Bhaskar Rajkhowa (32) planted sesame on five bighas of land on the left bank at No. 2 Pokadol. Before they could harvest the crop in early November, the river claimed four bighas in one sweep of erosion.

Experts analysing the Ranganadi Master Plan and NEEPCO’s PHEP documents have noted that while the project offers minimal flood control at the start of the monsoon, it is incapable of mitigating heavy floods.

Its reservoir, covering just 1.6 square kilometres and holding 0.008 cubic km of water when full, has no dedicated flood storage capacity. The full reservoir level and maximum water level are both fixed at 567 metres, leaving no buffer space for absorbing flood inflows.

Flow augmentation from NEEPCO’s PHEP has significantly altered the downstream channel of the Dikrong, making it wider, less meandering, and more braided due to increased water discharge and disrupted sediment patterns.

This has heightened erosion, accelerated sediment deposition, and reshaped the river into a more braided form, especially in the years following augmentation.

These physical changes continue to impact communities at Madhupur and Pokadol, where people who rebuilt their lives through sustainable agriculture now face unexpected flash floods, sand casting, and the steady destruction of cropland, forcing even the most resilient villagers back into uncertainty.