APPLICATION OF GIS AND REMOTE SENSING DATA IN SELECTING ALTERNATE HABITABLE SITE IN OUTER HIMALAYA, INDIA

Despite India’s extensive development achievements in the last nearly five decades since independence, the fact remains that it still remains one of the poorest nations in the world, in terms of per capita income and energy consumption. The per capita energy consumption which indicates the economic status of a nation, is only 0.25 tons of oil equivalent (TOE) as against nearly 8.5 TOE of developed nations. If the economic standard of the country is to be raised, an accelerated growth of economy becomes imperative which can greatly be facilitated through increased availability of energy, be it a conventional or non-conventional source of energy. Fortunately, India has vast unexploited hydropower potential estimated at about 84000 MW, the harnessing of which is expected to meet the domestic demand of ever growing population on one hand and relieve the country from heavy burden of foreign exchange outflow and dependence on imported fuel for generating electricity on the another hand. It is in this context that a 260m high Tehri Dam on a tributary of the Ganges in Central Himalayan Region is coming up for economic benefits the local people and country at large to deliver nearly 250 MW of electricity when completed in few years from now. But these economic benefits to the country are full of miseries to the local residents comprising nearly hundred villages around the Tehri Dam as their only source of livelihood the “irrigation land ” is going to be submerged under its vast water reservoir. On an average, nearly 50000 local village habitants are likely to be rendered homeless. In order to mitigate the environmental and socio-economic stresses of the upstream people whose lives would be drastically affected if not made to migrate to nearby safer places, the remote sensing and GIS data is used to find the alternate site for their rehabilitation