Purushothampatnam project: TS urges NGT to declare it as illegal
HYDERABAD: Pointing out that the Andhra Pradesh government has not approached the Central government for taking up the Purushothapatnam lift irrigation scheme in East Godavari district, the Telangana government on Tuesday urged the National Green Tribunal at New Delhi to declare the project as illegal as it was taken up without obtaining any approval from the ministry of environment and forest.
Pursuant to earlier direction of the NGT, the Telangana government filed a counter affidavit in the petition by Madicharla Satyanarayana and M Ramachandram from East Godavari district complaining that the Purushothapatnam project was taken up without conducting any statutory environmental impact assessment and social impact assessment as per the Right to fair compensation and transparency in rehabilitation and resettlement Act, 2013.
The Telangana government stated that the Purushothapatnam project across the river Godavari has its basin areas spread into other states like Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. It urged the NGT to direct the project proponent to operate the scheme after obtaining environment clearance from the concerned ministry by conducting socio-environment impact assessments under EIA notification 2006.
Meanwhile, the Centre, represented by the director of ministry of environment, forest and climate change, also filed an affidavit stating that no proposal was received by the ministry from the AP government in respect of Purushothapatnam scheme. The tribunal would hear the matter on August 16. On earlier occasion, petitioners’ counsel K Sravan Kumar told the tribunal that the lands of the affected farmers, including the petitioners, were taken away by force by deploying hundreds of police personnel.
No public hearing was conducted and environmental impact studies were done by the project proponent as per the law, he noted and urged the tribunal to order for a direct independent inspection at the project site to ascertain whether the project was initiated as part of Polavaram, which was declared as a National project, impact of the project on environment and ecology and so on and to submit a report before the tribunal. Besides, the counsel urged the tribunal to direct the government to fix responsibility on the officials for violating Environment Protect Act in construction of the project.