VIJAYAWADA: People living in the villages which will be affected by the Polvaram project have complained that the State government, which is keen on constructing the multi-crore project, is not bothered about their problems. They asked why the MLAs and MLCs, who visited the project site on Thursday, did not turn up to hear the problems affecting the people. The people of the seven villages that will submerge once the project is completed said the government should concentrate on the rehabilitation of the affected even as it goes ahead with the project.
The 2013 Land Acquisition Act 2013 and the Supreme Court directions regarding this Act specify that the residents should be provided help and rehabilitation before the constructing of the project. The president of the Association of Village Victims Agitation and secretary of the State Project Nirvasithula Sangham P Krishna Murthy said neither the State government nor the MLAs and MLCs are bothered about their problems. He said villagers requested to meet the MLAs’ team, but were arrested.
Though the works of the Polavaram project started in 2005 and the scheme was declared a national project two years back, the affected are still fighting for rehabilitation. According to the DPR, nearly 371 residential areas of AP, Odisha and Chhattisgarh are likely to be submerged. The affected lands are in agency areas where the project affects nearly two lakh people either directly or indirectly. However, the Godavari-Krishna linking irrigation project has been an important project for drinking, irrigation and electricity purposes. Nearly 170 kilometers of right canal works were completed. The residents are terrorised as Polavaram spillway works have started. The agitation before government offices through dharnas and deekshaas are on the rise.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his first Cabinet meeting, had passed an ordinance calling for the merging of seven mandals of Telangana which were prone to be submerged to Andhra Pradesh. However, no concrete decision was made on relief and rehabilitation works. While the Central is behaving this way, the State government has something else in mind. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is yet to give any directions regarding the R&R package for the displaced. While the estimated R&R cost during 2005-06 was `10,141 crore, the Union Water Ministry has raised it to `11,600 crore in 2010-11.
Polavaram victims will get justice, says Uma
Water Resources Minister Devineni Uma Maheshwara Rao stated that the Polavaram victims will get justice as the revised estimates of the project is H58,413 cr, of which the cost of rehabilitation package is H33,000 cr. Initially, R&R package was H2,000 crore to H3,000 crore. It will obviously get increased after the Land Acquisition Act 2013.