Orissa to challenge report on Polavaram in Supreme Court
BHUBANESWAR: Orissa government has decided to challenge the findings of Gopal Krishnan report on Pollavaram dam project in the Supreme Court. The Apex Court had manadated Gopal Krishnan to examine whether construction in Pollavaram is as per the law of the land.
The ruling Biju Janta Dal in Orissa in the recent past had organised a series of centre-bashing protest rallies across the state raking up the issue of clearance by the union ministry of environment and forest [MOEF] to the Andhra Pradesh government's Polavaram project over the Godavari river.
The BJD run Naveen Patnaik government has been maintaining that no public hearing was conducted in Malkangiri district before issuing environmental clearance to the project and the project violated Forest Conservation Act, 1980 so far as diversion of forest land for submergence was concerned. It also found many deficiencies in the procedures followed for the hydrology of the project and computation of backwater submergence, an official said here.
A high-level meeting held under chairmanship of Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik here revealed that the proposed project would result in submergence of vast areas in the state. The project in its present state is in violation of Godavari Water Dispute Tribunal orders in which the design flood of the dam was limited to 36 lakh cusec. The project also included upstream projects like Inchampalli and Bhopalapatnam for moderating flood water at Pollavaram project, the officials said.
The Andhra Pradesh Government has not taken up these upstream projects. In the absence of the upstream projects Polavaram will be a large reservoir making huge backwater submergence in Odisha.
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