Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik urges Centre to stop construction of Polavaram Project 

BHUBANESWAR: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today reiterated the demand of the Odisha government that the construction work of the Polavaram project should be stopped immediately till the issues pertaining to the state are resolved.

“The construction of Polavaram project is in violation of the Godavari Water Dispute Tribunal (GWDT) Award, and it is being constructed without correctly assessing the backwater extent in the Saberi and
Sileru limbs in the territory of Odisha,” the chief minister said in a letter to union minister for environment, forests and climate change Harsh Vardhan.

Odisha has filed an original suit no4 of 2007 against the construction of Polavaram project in the Supreme Court and the matter is subjudice before the apex court, the chief minister said and added that the environmental clearance (EC) granted in 2005 is invalid as no public hearing has been conducted in Malkangiri district, which would be severely affected due to construction the project in the present formulation.

Naveen said the EC granted by MoEF in favour of Polavaram project was set aside by the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) on December 19, 2007 and it directed for conducting public hearing in the affected areas of Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The orders of the NEAA were suspended by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh against which the Odisha government filed counter in the same court.

The Odisha government along with Chhattisgarh government had filed a transfer petition before the Supreme Court with a request to transfer the writ petition pending before the Andhra Pradesh high court
to the Supreme Court which the apex court has accepted. The consent of Odisha was never taken into consideration while changing the design parameters of Polavaram project by the Andhra Pradesh government and Central Water Commission (CWC), he said and added that the MoEF had kept the stop work order in abeyance for a period of one more year with effect from July 3, 2016.

The chief minister said Odisha is not being informed on the issue of “Stop Work Order” being kept in abeyance from time to time by the MoEF, thus allowing the construction of Polavaram head works and
distribution system uninterruptedly. “In view of the above, it is once again requested that the construction work of the Polavaram project should be stopped immediately till the issues pertaining to Odisha are resolved,” he said.