AP’s disastrous irrigation schemes slow down మంగళవారం, నవం 3 2009

Jalayagnam comes to a virtual halt

NM Satheesh  Indian Express 3 Nov 2009

HYDERABAD: Jalayagnam, the favourite scheme of former chief minister the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy, seems to have slided down in the list of priorities of the present government.

Leave alone the progress of the programme at the field level, even a review of it by the government has become rare in the last two months.

According to sources in the irrigation department, funding of the programme has come to a halt and the pending bills are piling up with the government.

It seems that the government is not going to spend the allocated budget Rs 18,000 crore in this financial year. The government has not released even Rs 1,000 crore for the projects in the last two months. It was decided by the regime of Rajasekhara Reddy that the government should release about Rs 1,400 crore every month to keep the projects going.

According to officials, the government has already halted payment of Rs 4,000 crore which was spent by the contractors and the construction of projects like Pulichintala which has been completed to an extent of 70 per cent is not progressing as per the schedule.

Irrigation officials say that the time table fixed by the government for the completion of 82 major and medium irrigation projects under Jalayagnam will go awry.

The YSR government had contemplated Jalayagnam to bring about one crore acres of land under irrigation facility. Under the scheme 82 projects are to be constructed at a cost of Rs 1.50 lakh crore.

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Truth of Displacement & Rehabilitation: GoM’s confidential Report శనివారం, అక్టో 31 2009

The Hindu /Opinion 17 April 2006

GoM’s confidential report

This is the text, obtained exclusively by The Hindu, of “A Brief Note on the Assessment of Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R & R) Sites and Submergence of Villages of the Sardar Sarovar Project.” The note marked confidential and dated April 9, 2006, was signed by Union Minister of Water Resources, Saifuddin Soz, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar, and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chauhan.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) comprising Prof. Saifuddin Soz, Minister of Water Resources, Smt. Meira Kumar, Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment and Shri Prithviraj Chavan, MOS in the PMO, deputed by the Hon’ble Prime Minister to Madhya Pradesh, arrived Indore late in the evening on April 6, 2006.

Soon after arrival in Indore, a meeting was held with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan and some of his Cabinet colleagues and officers.

The Madhya Pradesh Government made a presentation and wanted the GoM to appreciate that the Madhya Pradesh Government had taken concrete steps to rehabilitate Project Affected Families (PAFs) and that Rehabilitation and Resettlement would be completed by 30th June, 2006. In that connection, the GoM was requested to visit some sites such as Khalghat, Dharampuri, Lakhangaon and Borlai etc.

When asked as to how many SC/ST families were affected, the Government could not provide any information.

Early in the morning of April 7, 2006, the GoM left for a visit to Rehabilitation and Submergence sites.

The GoM visited Khalghat, Dharampuri, Lakhangaon, Borlai 1, 2 and 3, Awalda, Piplud and Nisarpur. The GoM was stopped at other places including Picchodi where people narrated their tales of woe. The representatives of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) had insisted in Delhi in their memorandum that a visit to Borlai, Awalda, Piplud and Nisarpur would be necessary to find out whether the claim of the Government of Madhya Pradesh that the PAFs had been rehabilitated was correct.

Khalghat

The GoM visited Khalghat site where Madhya Pradesh Government had offered land to 407 families. Only 2 families had accepted the land. The top soil there is black. The people say that they have to dig 10 feet deep to find the cultivable land. The Government had not succeeded in persuading the oustees to accept the land. Hundreds of people on the spot complained before the GoM that the Government had not conducted a proper survey and offered the land without consulting the oustees. Shri Mohan Lal Sharma (resident of Gazipur, District Dharampuri) who spoke on behalf of oustees, complained before the members of the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) that the Madhya Pradesh Government had acted in haste and allotted the land which was totally uncultivable. The members of the NVDA did not contradict Shri Mohan Lal.

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Polavaram Dam- Evicted & harassed మంగళవారం, నవం 18 2008

The last crop
R Uma Maheshwari
R Uma Maheshwari Rama Rao’s field won’t grow food anymore Compensation fails to rehabilitate Polavaram’s displaced The day Boragam Rama Rao saw the fresh stocks of his corn crop crushed by large excavators and crane tractors, he knew he had made that transition—from tribal farmer to tribal ‘beneficiary’. At least until he starts reconstructing his life all over again: with Rs 1.2 lakh and a piece of land as yet uncultivable. Rama Rao is the sarpanch of the Mamidigundi panchayat in Andhra Pradesh’s West Godavari district. He has lost nearly a hectare (ha) of land to Indira Sagar Polavaram dam project across the river Godavari. According to Andhra Pradesh government’s figures, the project will displace 276 villages in Khammam and East and West Godavari districts of the state.
And if the 2001 census is any indicator, 2,37,000 people face displacement—more than 50 per cent of them adivasis. “Officials told us last year that it would take us eight to 10 years for the barrage dam to come up and we would not be evacuated until waters came in. They assured us that we could continue to farm our lands in Mamidigundi and also enjoy the relief and rehabilitation package,” Rama Rao said. This year, his village was among the first villages to accept the relief and rehabilitation package. People regret the deal now. “The government acquired more than 80 ha from our village. We were given barely 65 ha as compensation at the relief and rehabilitation colony in Gunjavaram,” Rama Rao lamented. “Back at Mamidigundi, all my crops were rain-fed. I got 40 bags of paddy per acre as the first and 30 to 40 bags of corn for the second crop. The authorities have not compensated me for the damage to my standing crops because they say I have taken the relief and rehabilitation package. They placed orders of arrest (on charges of criminal trespass on government land) when we went to harvest the last crop. At least they could have allowed us to enjoy that last yield from our land,” he continued. R&R colony At the relief and rehabilitation colony at Gunjavaram, Boragam Buchiraju was supervising the construction of a new home. He was in a rush to complete the job; he had to start preparing the fields (part of the compensation package) a few kilometers away.   The Buchiraju home under construction Buchiraju’s father, Kamaraju, is bit of an exception. No other Mamidigundi resident has begun constructing a home at Gunjavaram. Many have already used up the compensation money in bribing officials, paying back earlier loans and in purchasing immediate necessities. Even Kamaraju has spent Rs 80,000 of the Rs 1.2 lakh given for house construction in just putting up a basement. With the price of bricks, sand, iron and cement hitting the roof in the last few months, many wonder if they will reach that point of laying the foundation. Kamaraju said to begin agricultural activities afresh on the new lands they would need to invest a minimum of Rs 15,000; then there is the cost of seeds, fertilizers and labour. Even the daily bus or shared autorickshaw trips between the relief and rehabilitation land in Gunjavaram and Mamidigundi cost at least Rs 40 a day. “We would have to spend double of what we spent on our fields in Mamidigundi,” Rama Rao said. “Fields in Gunjavaram do not have Mamidigundi’s water retention capacity, he explained and added that the farmers will have to pay three times the labour cost to make the land cultivable. But Kamaraju and Rama Rao are still somewhat fortunate. Consider the plight of Boragam Pandamma, a landless labourer. “They gave my family Rs 1.7 lakh. Would it last till we start building the house there? The labour costs of just a verandah and a room is around Rs 2 lakh. Cement and bricks are as dear as gold. When we question the officials, they ask us to manage within that amount.”

 

Source: Down to Earth, 18 November 2008

 

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Farmers’ own bank- initiative for self reliance శుక్రవారం , జూలై 4 2008

A bank by farmers, for farmers

G. Nagaraja

 

Unique experiment draws the attention of top brass from the banking sector

 

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Daneswari Kisan Bank celebrates second anniversary

It turns down offer of extension of farm credit

……………………………………………………….………………………….

 

DUVVA (West Godavari Dt.): This tiny and low-profile delta village adjacent to the Kolkata-Chennai National Highway-5 in Tanuku mandal of West Godavari district beckons the who’s who of the banking sector for its unique experiment in the banking field.

 

A small group of farmers from the village have given a new meaning to the concept of banking by floating the “Daneswari Kisan Bank” a year ago with self-help as its motto. The self-help concept here is being followed in letter and spirit.

 

Reversal of roles

 

And when the bank celebrated its second anniversary on Wednesday, the unique concept naturally drew the top brass from the banking sector and the administration.

 

They included G. Veeraprasad, Assistant General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and R. Shankara Rao, Lead District Manager, and a senior official from the Department of Agriculture. In a reversal of roles, farmers made these officials listen to their concept in rapt attention. They politely turned down the offer of R. Shankar Rao, Lead District Manager, for extension of farm credit to them saying they were aiming at self-reliance in all respects.

 

Small beginning

 

This ranged from extension of interest-free credit, production of seed and supply to the farmers in their village, procurement and even the marketing of farm produce.

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People’s agenda wins Telangana byelections మంగళవారం, జూన్ 3 2008

Polepally protesters sway poll outcome

P. Sainath

 

The farmers contesting the Jadcherla seat helped to defeat the sitting MLA.

— Photo: P. Sainath

The Jadcherla 13, of whom eight are seen in the picture, succeeded in lowering the votes of the main parties

 

They made history by standing as 13 independent candidates fighting the same Assembly seat but contesting for, not against, one another. They did it again on Sunday — by helping defeat the sitting Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLA, even as every one of them lost his or her own security deposit.

The 13 farmers contesting the Jadcherla seat in Telangana — who lost their lands to the Polepally Pharma Special Economic Zone — together drew a total of over 8,000 votes. That is, four times Congress candidate Mallu Ravi’s victory margin over the Telugu Desam Party’s Erra Sekhar.

The effort of these mainly Dalit, backward caste and Adivasi farmers — a protest to draw attention to their loss of land — torpedoed the sitting TRS MLA, Lakshma Reddy. He drew less than 21,000 votes and came third. Both his Congress and TDP rivals drew more than twice that number each.

As many as 350 families have lost all their land — some 969 acres — to the Pharma SEZ (The Hindu, May 26, 2008). But even if these families had three votes each, the Jadcherla 13 drew several times that number in sympathy. That is, there is clear evidence of a much wider sympathy for them. Not only did they lose their land, they got no compensation beyond a pittance per acre.

The land acquired by the government for the SEZ is adjacent to the national highway. It is also not far from the Shamshabad airport. Land rates in the region are thus well above Rs.20 lakh per acre. Often even higher than that. But the displaced farmers got sums ranging from Rs.18,000 to Rs.50,000 an acre, way below the prevailing market rates.

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Struggle against farmers’ deaths – Polepalli SEZ ఆదివారం, మే 25 2008

 

Rejoice the death of Telangana farmers in Polepalli

 

Let’s hug deep the rose thorns

and play holi in courtyard of dora’s gadi

for the lips that got sealed tight over Pothireddypadu dam

 

Let’s sing till throats slit in praise of

their courage for waving rose colored flag

in honor of those who sold away Telangana lands

 

Lets lick armpits and felicitate sacrifices of those

who butchered at the village bodrai

farmer’s umbilical cord with the land 

 

Why think of whatever happens to anybody

isn’t Telangana that is all we need after all?

And……..

bury each other in our asses as there is no land left for a graveyard

Long live Telangana

 

 

Expression in words of Polepalli SEZ farmers’ anger 

 

by – Madhu Kagula

Mahbubnagar District Convenor, Telangana Aikya Karyacharana Committee

translated by – M Bharath Bhushan

PS: rose thorns, rose flag, dora gadi and bodrai refer to specific Polepalli SEZ context where TRS MLA is actively supporting the SEZ . otherwise it is like SEZ elsewhere. rose color refers to the flag of TRS party  

 

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మధు కాగుల

 

 

పోతిరెడ్డిపాడుపై పెదవి విప్పని
గులాబి ముళ్ళని కౌగిలించుకుని
దొరల గడిల ముంగల హోళీ ఆడుదాం

తెలంగాణ భూముల్ని తెగనమ్మినోనికి
గులాబి జెండానూపి దారిచూపినోని నమ్మకానికి
గొంతులు తెగేదాక పాటపాడుదాం
 
వూరి బొడ్రాయి దగ్గెర ఖడ్గంతో
రైతుకు భూమికి వున్న పేగుభంధాన్ని తెగనరికినోని
త్యాగానికి సన్మానం చేసి సంకనాకుదాం

ఎవడేమైతే మన్కేమి?
తెలంగాణ వస్తె చాలు
ఫిరు……….
పాతిపెట్టుకోటానికి జాగలేక
ఒకని ముడ్ల ఒకన్ని బొందపెట్టుకొందాం

జై తెలఅంగాణ

“పోలెపల్లి రైతుల ఆక్రోషానికి అక్షర రూపం”
 
మీ
మధు కాగుల
జిల్లా కన్వీనరు
తెలంగాణ ఐక్య కార్యాచరణ కమిటి
మహబూబ నగరు

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Polavaram Dam- A Prescription for National Disaster శుక్రవారం , మార్చి 21 2008

Polavaram Dam- A Prescription for the Most Shocking National Economic Disaster? 

- Prof T Shivaji Rao

A.P. state proposes to construct a few China-wall like embankments to protect several villages of Khammam District likely to be inundated due to floods due to construction of Polavaram dam. These structures will be 44 Km.long with a height of 189 feet, with a free board of 6 ft. above the level of 183.6 ft., the peak flood mark that touched during the 35 lakh cusecs flood of August 1986. The cost is estimated at Rs.307 crores. Such embankments failed to stop inundation of vast areas of the temple town of Bhadrachalam during the August 2006 floods of Godavari river. The Government insisted that polavaram Dam will be able to discharge a peak flood of 49 lakh cusecs .

But the AP State Government must realise that the Central Water Commission [CWC] has adopted a 1000-year return flood for spillway design for Sardar Sarovar project and 10,000-year return flood for the Tehri dam because Tehri dam failure is likely to cause the death of several lakhs of people in Rishikesh and Haridawar and other towns in gangetic belt in addition to large scale economic damages to crops and properties. The AP State Government stated that the 1986 kind floods occur once in 500 years while 49 lakh cusec floods occur once in 1000 years.

The basic mistake being committed by the AP state Government and the Central Government is their failure to consider that the probable maximum flood (PMF)  shall not only be based on hydrological and technological considerations but also on the socio-economic and environmental considerations including major catastrophic dam failure hazards as per the modern methods followed for the design of the dam and the spillway in almost all the major countries of the world. Since India is also member of the international committee on large dams [ICOLD] it is the duty of the Central Water Commission to revise the design flood of 50 lakhs cusecs [cubic feet per second] as recently calculated by it in October 2006 for the Polavaram project to atleast 75 lakhs cusecs. This view is on the basis of the inflow flood of 1,70,000 cumecs [cubic meters per second] equivalent to about 60 lakhs cusecs as adopted by the eminent hydrological experts of the National Institute of Hydrology [NIH], Roorkee who conducted the dam break analysis operations in June 1999. Dam break analysis was done at the specific request of the Andhra Pradesh state Government for the purpose of preparing disaster management, risk analysis and environmental management programmes as per the conditions stipulated under the regulations of the environmental impact assessment report prepared as per rules of the Environmental Protection Act 1986.

Moreover, the Central Water Commission[CWC] while estimating the 1000-year return period flood for spillway design of the Sardar Sarovar Project had concluded that for the catchment area of 88,000 sq. km of Narmada River, the maximum flood was estimated at 87,000 cumecs and this means that the peak flood estimate comes to about one cumec [cubic meter per second] per sq.km area. Since Godavari catchment area is having similar characteristics and is also adjacent to Narmada catchment in terms of meteorological and topographical features, the probable Maximum Flood [PMF] at Polavaram under similar conditions has to be estimated at about 2 lakhs cumecs which is equivalent to about 75 lakhs cusecs.

.Surprisingly, if the water storage in Polavaram is transformed into an additional incremental flood in case of a dam failure, the additional reservoir -based flood comes to about 70,000 cumecs that is equivalent to about 25 lakhs cusecs. Consequently, the inflow design flood for Polavaram project must be taken as 100 lakh cusecs which is the actual magnitude of flood estimated by the eminent hydrological experts of the National Institute of Hydrology [NIH] in their report on dam break analysis for Polavaram project submitted to the AP State Government as already stated above. In view of the anticipated deaths of lakhs of people in the Gangetic belt due to a hypothetical failure of Tehri Dam, CWC has considered areturn flood of 10,000 years period amounting to15,540 Cumecs from a catchment area of 7,550 sq.km. Since Polavaram Dam is located in a more hazardous site with many highly vulnerable towns and cities, CWC must follow the international guidelines for the design of this major project and should not plan to wipe out of existence 45 lakhs of people in Godavari delta by resorting to the underdesigning of the spillway of Polavaram by using a very low value of 50 lakhs cusecs of probable maximum flood.

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Polavaram Dam- Ecological Disaster బుధవారం, జన 23 2008

Polavaram project in legal wrangle

KIRTIMAN AWASTHI

The multi-crore Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh is currently embroiled in legal issues. But now, the project is being contested on technical issues as well. A study carried out by the International Water Management Institute (iwmi), an international non-profit research and development organization, has questioned the fundamental basis on which the project was designed. It was designed on the estimation that since the Godavari river has surplus water, it will be transferred to the water-deficit Krishna basin.

•  Polavaram factfile The iwmi report has found that the Godavari does not have enough water to spare. A feasibility report by the National Water Development Agency (nwda) on the other hand says Godavari is water surplus. It calculated the surface water availability at Polavaram—the downstream-most dam on the Godavari (there are three dams)—to be 80,170 million cubic metres (mcm), considering 75 per cent assured flow (water available for 75 per cent of time in a year).

nwda officials calculated the figure using annual average rainfall data. iwmi calculated surface water availability to be 36,000 mcm using monthly data. After deducting all water allocations, as designed by nwda, there is a deficit of 37,199 mcm (see table: Godavari: Surplus or not?). “The problem with the annual average is it does not consider variability of flow within a year, which is very high in monsoon-driven rivers,” says Vladimir Smakhtin, a hydrologist with iwmi, in his report. The catchment area gets around 70 per cent of rainfall just between June and September. nwda officials disagree. “Estimates based on annual average and monthly average will certainly vary. Since rainfall is not uniform throughout the year, it is better to take annual average. Our methodology is used for all inter-basin water transfer and is peer reviewed and approved by technical experts,” says N K Bhandari, chief engineer with nwda. Smakhtin says the nwda method of calculation also overlooks the allocation of water to keep the river ecosystem alive. The water used for such purposes is called environmental water, which is an equally important component of use, besides other uses such as irrigation, domestic and industrial projects. “The present planning of inter-basin water transfer is based on future irrigation requirement and ignores environmental water demand, which is important to maintain the ecology of the basin,” says Parikshit Gautam, director, Freshwater and Wetland Conservation Programme, wwf- India. iwmi estimates that 8,200 mcm of water flow is required to keep the river fit for fisheries and wildlife. This itself is a conservative figure as this flow cannot make the river fit for human consumption by checking human and industrial waste.

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Perilious Mega Projects- Weak Regulatory Institutions శనివారం, జన 12 2008

The environment`s back in business

Latha Jishnu / Business Standard, New Delhi January 12, 2008

Whether it is quashing the Polavaram dam’s clearance or the CEC asking Posco to get a composite clearance, rushing through environment approvals will no longer be as easy.

When the National Environmental Appellate Authority (NEAA) quashed the clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to Polavaram, one of the most expensive multipurpose dam projects in the country, three weeks ago, it came as a stunning verdict.

It was the first time in its 10-year history that the NEAA is said to have overturned an environmental clearance given by MoEF, and it caught the Andhra Pradesh government, which is implementing the project, by surprise. For the environmentalists, it was an unexpected victory although it turned out to be a short-lived one. In an appeal to the AP High Court, the government managed to get a stay on the NEAA decision.

Polavaram, with a 150-foot high dam on the Godavari, is a gigantic undertaking. It envisages the diversion of 80,000 million cubic feet of its waters through a 174-km link canal to the Krishna in a project that promises seemingly huge benefits: irrigation for 291,000 hectares, drinking water to 2.5 million people in villages on the project’s route, apart from a substantial part for Visakhapatnam city, and a hydroelectric power station with a generating capacity of 960 MW. All of this is expected to cost over Rs 12,500 crore, up sharply from the initially estimated Rs 9,000 crore.

The bigger cost, however, is the displacement. The project straddles parts of Chhattisgarh and Orissa and around 200,000 — far higher than the 150,000 displaced by the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam — would have to be resettled. The surprising part about the clearance for Polavaram is that the MoEF did so without holding the mandatory public hearings on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report in either Chhattisgarh or Orissa, which are dead set against the project because they derive no benefits.

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