Saraswati Prakash Sati cannot stop agonising over the ravaged face of the Alaknanda. He sighs, looking at the once-mighty river that the 330-megawatt (MW) hydropower dam has reduced to a thin trickle. The dammed water flows into tunnels, enters a de-sedimentation basin (DSB), then a canal, and then hits the turbine blades to generate power. An approximately seven-kilometre stretch of the original water course, which passes through the heart of Srinagar (Garhwal), a township of about 60,000