N C Saxena, who led the committee which recommended against permitting mining of the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, says the same approach should be adopted for Andhra Pradesh’s mammoth Polavaram hydro project, too.
If there is violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) there, too, it should not be allowed, as that is the law of the land, Saxena told Business Standard.
The Polavaram dam being constructed on the Godavari river by the Andhra Pradesh government for irrigation and power generation got final clearance from the ministry of environment and forests a month earlier, despite detailed charges of violation of the FRA and despite a submergence area of 7,500 hectares of forest land involved.
About 330 tribal villages fall in the submergence area. The state government has been accused of not setting up forest rights committees at the gram sabha level in each of these villages to seek the consent of the people and to evaluate their right to the forests that are being removed.
The Congress-led UPA government at the Centre has been accused of double standards, for rejecting Vedanta on the one hand and allowing Polavaram on the other.
The Saxena committee’s interpretation of the FRA makes the say of the forest dwellers even superior to that of the ministry itself. But it has not been applied here.
N C Saxena says if the gram sabhas have not been heard in Polavaram, then it is illegal. Asked if he would take it up in the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, where he is a member, he declined to commit himself. But said people and activists could use the Vedanta verdict and the committee report to get justice. They could appeal to both the courts and the Union environment ministry, he said, even if the final clearance had been officially given.
The National Environment Appellate Authority had accused the Andhra government of FRA violations, particularly not seeking the consent of gram sabhas of the 330 villages involved.
These are mostly in East and West Godavari districts, besides two districts of Orissa and in Chhattisgarh.
The state government has since redesigned the dam by including a wall along the state border to prevent flooding in neighbouring Orissa and Chhattisgarh. This would mean additional requirement of land.
The environment appraisal committee of the ministry itself had asked for a fresh application in view of this changed design. However, the clearance came in spite of this.
Orissa and Chhattisgarh have both opposed the project, as it is feared to cause floods in their villages once completed.
