Taking a serious note of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding his intervention in the controversial 400-Mw Maheshwar power project, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) today demanded a White Paper on the project. In the letter, Chouhan had mentioned NBA as an obstacle to the execution of rehabilitation and resettlement work .
The NBA termed the letter as baseless and “fact-less”. An NBA activist Chitrupa Palit said, “The state government is favouring a private promoter and not the affected public. It should honour the Centre’s decision and help in the resettlement and rehabilitation work of the 70,000 affected people.” She also added, “Till the study of submergence to be caused by the dam is made available, agricultural land for allotment to the displaced people is identified, and the villagers rehabilitated and resettled, the ministry of environment and forests has suspended the work on the Maheshwar dam under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.”
Referring to Chouhan’s letter written to Union Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh on November 24 last year on the subject of the progress made on rehabilitation and resettlement work on the project, Palit said, “The chief minister had himself admitted that only 291 families have been resettled, hence only three per cent of the rehabilitation work has been done.”