MoEF orders suspension of Maheshwar Hydel dam project for flouting clearance laws
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COMMENTS 
The environment ministry has ordered suspension of work on the first private hydroelectric plant in the country, for failing to prepare a rehabilitation plan for the 70,000 people the project will uproot
It was a feather in the cap for thousands of people uprooted by the Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power project on the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh when the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) ordered the suspension of construction work on the dam.
A letter addressed to M L Gupta, managing director of the power corporation, on April 23, 2010, by S Bhowmik, Additional Director, MoEF, stated that negligible rehabilitation work had been done in the affected areas and that no agricultural land had been identified for rehabilitation purposes.
There was jubilation among the 1,000 protestors who had gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi since April 22 to demand that work on the dam be halted. Alok Agarwal, a senior activist with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, which has been leading the agitation, and Komalbai and Ramlal Patidar, both of whom are affected by the Maheshwar dam, were on a protest fast.
The MoEF’s order follows a show-cause notice to Maheshwar Hydel on February 17, 2010, seeking clarification on progress in the implementation of environmental safeguard measures and rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) of the oustees. The company’s reply, in March, was found to be unsatisfactory on five grounds.
The MoEF found that ‘negligible R&R had been done and no agricultural land identified for rehabilitation purposes’. Out of the 22 affected villages, R&R work has been done in just one village of Jalud. The two wildlife sanctuaries that were to be created have not come up as yet and the backwater-level calculation report of the Central Water Commission which was supposed to be given in December 2009 has not been submitted so far.
‘The central government thus in exercise of its power under Section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 has made orders for suspension of work. Copies of the letter have also been given to the MP government and Chairman, MP Pollution Control Board,’ the letter continued.
About 1,000 oustees of the Maheshwar dam in Madhya Pradesh had gathered in the capital to demand that the environment ministry immediately suspend construction on the dam until a comprehensive rehabilitation plan was submitted and the over 70,000 oustees rehabilitated and resettled according to the conditions of environmental clearance and the approved rehabilitation policy. The agitation received support from representatives of the anti-displacement movement for the Omkareshwar, Indira Sagar, Man, and Upper Beda dams.
Under the rehabilitation and resettlement policy, affected villagers are to be provided agricultural land and other rehabilitation benefits. However, in violation of the conditions of clearance, which require that a complete R&R plan, with details of agricultural land, be submitted by December 2001, and which require the implementation of R&R measures at the same place as the dam was being constructed, construction work continued full swing even as barely 5% of the rehabilitation plan had been carried out. The full extent of the submergence is yet to be known as the project authorities play with figures for the affected area and refuse to do backwater-level surveys.
The 400 MW Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Ltd dam is the first privately financed hydroelectric dam in India. It is a run-of-the-river project on the Narmada, coming up in Jalud and Lepa villages at Mandleshwar in Khargone district, 108 km southwest of Indore. The cost of the project is estimated to be Rs 2,254 crore.
In 1993, the Maheshwar project was awarded to S Kumars, a textile corporation (it was originally under the Narmada Valley Development Authority and subsequently the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board). In 1994, the project received conditional environmental clearance from the central Ministry of Environment and Forests.
The project will displace around 70,000 people in 61 villages who have been resisting the project for the last 14 years. It is expected to reduce peak-power shortages in Madhya Pradesh by over 25%.
-- Moushumi Basu
(Moushumi Basu is a journalist based in Jharkhand)
Infochange News & Features, April 2010