Once again the Tehri dam is in the eye of a storm. Buckling under the pressure of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (vhp) supremo Ashok Singhal, the Union government has set up another committee to review the Tehri dam. vhp has made no bones in opposing the dam, saying that it would "kill the sacredness and purity' of the Ganga. But the reason tendered by the VHP has baffled many. They ask whether the nation can afford to waste time and resources for a purely unscientific reason when the river stops to flow after Hardwar. All this when the dam is almost three-fourth complete.

On March 31, 2001, Singhal had threatened to go on a fast if the tunnels at Tehri dam were closed, claiming that this threatened the "self purification qualities' of Ganga jal (water). vhp says that due to a halt in the flow of the river, the self-purification quality of the water would be destroyed. Water will be impounded for days behind a storage reservoir. Apparently, the water will be released every 160 days. Due to this stagnancy, the self-purification quality will be destroyed, claims the vhp .

The government conceded and an 11-member committee was set up on April 10, 2001, to pacify Singhal. If this was not enough, the vhp was allowed to nominate four members to the review committee. "We nominated four members