The Andhra Pradesh government appears unwilling to acquiesce to Odisha's request that work on construction of Polavaram multipurpose project be stopped forthwith till the latter's concerns were addressed.
A minister has said the state government has all the required clearances for the multi-purpose irrigation project, accorded national project status by the Centre.
"We have all the clearances and we will go ahead with the construction," Andhra Pradesh Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao asserted.
He alleged opposition parties in AP were instigating other states (a reference to Chhattisgarh and Odisha), by raising the Polavaram issue in Parliament, to get the project stalled.
On October 10, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wrote a letter to his AP counterpart Chandrababu Naidu requesting that the construction work of Polavaram be stopped immediately till his state's concerns were addressed.
In the letter, Patnaik said construction of Polavaram was going on at a rapid pace without correctly assessing the design, flood and backwater extent in Malkangiri district of the state. He also stated that the construction was in violation of Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal Award.
"The construction work on the project is going on without any further permission by MoEF&CC (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change) as per record available with the government of Odisha. No efforts have been made to resolve the issues relating to Odisha," Patnaik said.
When his reaction was sought to this, the AP minister told reporters yesterday that there was no question of stopping the construction.
"We want to complete the project by 2019," he added.
Rao accused YSR Congress and Congress leaders of instigating the neighbouring states over the project. "Our opposition parties have been trying hard to get the project stalled but we will not let them succeed," he asserted.
The dam, being constructed across the Godavari river, has its reservoir spread in parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
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