AP gets Centre notice on Polavaram embankment
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COMMENTS 
The Ministry for Environment and Forests has sought an explanation from the Andhra Pradesh government for starting work on the controversial Polavaram irrigation project without proper environmental clearance, and for not holding public hearings in the adjoining states of Orissa and Chhattisgarh
The Andhra Pradesh government has been issued a notice by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests seeking to know, within ten days, why a public hearing on the Polavaram irrigation project, which was given approval in 2005, has not been held despite repeated reminders in the last one-and-a-half years.
First proposed in the 1940s, the 150-foot-high Polavaram dam is slated to submerge a huge area. Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has insisted that a public hearing be held to listen to the concerns of tribals likely to be affected by the project.
The ministry has also asked the state government to provide details of the dam’s construction status and explain why a formal show cause should not be issued (for not following norms). “Why a show cause notice should not be issued formally under Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act as work on the project is continuing without getting the environment clearance amended for additional components like construction of embankments, drainage sluices and pumping arrangements,” it said.
The Centre is belatedly questioning the construction of a 30-km-long, 45-foot-high embankment to stop the river -- that generates one of the world’s fiercest floods -- from inundating parts of Orissa and Chhattisgarh.
The wall, technically an embankment, was one of the promises made in 2006 by an anxious Andhra Pradesh after the Orissa High Court cleared the project on condition that no people or villages would be displaced in Orissa by the Polavaram dam’s reservoir on the Godavari river and its two tributaries, the Saberi and Sileru.
Stung by the missive, a deflated Andhra Chief Minister K Rosaiah said his government would send an appropriate reply to the Centre.
The project received final clearance from the forest division in September this year. That clearance is becoming increasingly hard to justify because no studies were done, as required by the environmental laws, on the land, people and forests that would be displaced by the giant embankment. Likewise, no plans were made for drains and pumps in the cyclone-prone area.
“At last the ministry has issued a notice, but it is an eyewash,” says Surya Narayan Patro, Orissa’s revenue minister. “The Andhra Pradesh government did all kinds of illegal things to push the project, but got clearance after clearance.”
“We are not opposed to anyone getting water, but what was the hurry in clearing it (Polavaram) and then issuing notices,” asks N Baijendra Kumar, principal secretary to the Chhattisgarh chief minister. “We share the concerns of the Orissa government.”
Source: Hindustan Times, November 3, 2010
The Indian Express, November 3, 2010
Press Trust of India, November 2, 2010