Stop Polavaram work,Naveen tells unionmin

BHUBANESWAR:THE Odisha Government on Saturday demanded before the Centre that construction work of the Polavaram project be stopped immediately till the issues pertaining to the State are resolved. In a letter to Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Harsh Vardhan, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said construction of the project is in violation of Godavari Water Dispute Tribunal (GWDT) Award and being continued without correctly assessing the backwater extent in the Saberi and Sileru limbs in the territory of Odisha.

Odisha challenged the construction of Polavaram project in 2007 before 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 since 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 National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) on December 19, 2007 set aside the EC granted by MoEF in favour of Polavaram project and 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), Naveen 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. Naveen 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.

Hartal call

Bhubaneswar: The Mahanadi Bachao Andolan (MBA) has decided to give a hartal call in protest against closure of all gates of the Kalma barrage by the Chhattisgarh Government. A decision in this regard was taken at all party meeting called by MBA here. All political parties attended the meeting except the BJP. Convenor of MBA Sudarshan Das said the date of the statewide hartal will be finalised after discussion with all other political parties which attended the meeting. He said a letter was written to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh by the MBA as per the decision taken at the all party meeting on May 13 requesting him to open gates of the Kalma barrage immediately. However, Singh did not respond.