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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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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Disastrous Polavaram Dam & Illegal Clearances- NEAA మంగళవారం, డిసెం 25 2007

National Environment Appellate Authority has found ‘environmental clearance’ to Polavaram Dam given by Ministry of Environment & Forests unacceptable and improper. Environment clearance was granted in October 2005 to this controversial and disastrous dam in great haste under political pressure of YSR government. That clearance was a mockery, alleged by civil society and environment activists and adivasi groups, is proved by the NEAA declaring the ‘clearance’ unaccpetable  

Prof Sivaji Rao, environment expert, described it as a killer dam http://mbbhushan.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/save-andhra-pradesh-from-polavaram-prof-shivaji-rao/

Several NGOs and peoples organisations resisted the dam since mid eighties on ecological, economic and social grounds. 

YSR government started implementing the project with manifold cost escalations, hundred design deviations and thousand lies without a single clearance from any authority as part of the contractors’ raj and its pet scheme – Jala Yagnam in Andhra Pradesh

Jalayagnam plans to irrigate one crore acres at a cost of one lakh rupees per acre! and all that before the next elections!! just one  lakh crores to go down the drain in a record time!!!

this is yet another judgement against YSR government’s illegal projects

report on the issue from lliveMint.com the wall street journal

bharath bhushan

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Two years on, project caught in green knots

National Environment Appellate Authority says nod for the Polavaram dam given without adequate hearing to people who may be hit

Padmaparna Ghosh

New Delhi: In a setback to the Andhra Pradesh government, the environmental go-ahead for a large multi-purpose dam has been set aside, two years after work had begun on the project.

The Polavaram dam, also known as the Indira Sagar project, is located in the northern part of the state and would straddle portions of the adjoining states of Chhattisgarh and Orissa.

In its order issued on Monday, the National Environment Appellate Authority, the statutory body that is empowered to hear appeals challenging environmental clearances, maintained that the clearance given by the Union environment ministry was done without giving an adequate hearing to all the people likely to be displaced, the largest in any similar project in the country. The order was passed by a bench comprising J.C Kala, I.V. Manivannan and Kaushlendra Prasad.

“Conceived in 1982, the project languished until it was taken up in earnest in 2002 by the Telugu Desam-led state government”

Under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, all major projects, in sectors such as hydroelectric, mega power and mining, have to get an environmental clearance, which is based on an environmental impact assessment.

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Polavaram dam is threat to wildlife గురువారం, అక్టో 4 2007

Another Golden Gecko ‘discovered’

 

K. Venkateshwarlu

HYDERABAD: In what could be termed as gold rush of sorts, another Golden Gecko, the “severely endangered lizard” has been found in the State this time in the equally threatened Papikonda hills of the northern Eastern Ghats abutting Godavari river.

“It was discovered by a team of World Wide Fund for Nature- India during one of its nature camps at the Papikonda hills ”, said Farida Tampal, director of WWF- India, Andhra Pradesh Chapter. The primitive living lizard protected by the Schedule I Part II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 was sighted a few months ago but not highlighted till it was published in a research journal recently.

For wildlife enthusiasts it is big news coming as it were close on the heels of its sighting in Seshachalam hill ranges by young researcher, M. Rajasekhar of Sri Venkateswara University. Its sighting in northern Eastern Ghats is significant as it was earlier thought to be endemic to Seshachalam hill ranges in the south, the WWF team said.

However, this endemic and range restricted species is now facing an imminent threat from the construction of the Indira Sagar Project (Polavaram project) which threatens to inundate the hills.

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Save Andhra Pradesh from Polavaram – Prof Shivaji Rao మంగళవారం, సెప్టెం 25 2007

Prof Shivaji Rao, environmental scientist, warns of severe catastrophe downstream of Polavaram due to any dam break and other threats. Also he mentions large number of villages upstream getting adversely affected over and above what is reported by the AP government as affected areas due to backwater effect. The damage is likely to affect about 369 villages. Magnitude of this nature was estimated by the study conducted by Aranyika (Bharath Bhushan, Murali et al 1992, 1994)

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There are several other dimensions of the Polavaram project that require the work to be stopped immediately.

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Any approvals given by any department to the Polavaram project are null and void as the designs that are taking shape on ground are totally different from the project report that was the basis of these approvals. The current design of Polavaram project pursued by YS Rajashekar Reddy government is in violation of the decades old ‘interstate agreement’ that referred to entirely different project design

Polavaram design was considered highly faulty, at a later stage, by none other than Dr K L Rao himself

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Prof Shivaji Rao’s draws attention to several technical and legal dimensions of the controversial dam that threatens to wipe out downstream districts of Andhra Pradesh

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Bharath Bhushan  

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Polavaram is a Killer Dam, says Prof Sivaji Rao

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To save the Bhadrachalam’s most sacred Rama Temple and several tribal villages from submersion by the Polavaram dam which can be made people-friendly by converting it into a barrage the arguments to be advanced by Chattisgarh and Orissa in the Supreme Court are likely to be on the following lines for convincing A.P state to agree for replacement of the Big Dam by a smaller Barrage as previously suggested by Dr. A.N.Khosla, former Governor of Orissa

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1. The states of Orissa and Chattisgarh consider Dr. K.L.Rao, the former Union Minister for Water Resources as an Eminent authority on irrigation projects like big dams. In the case of Polavaram project he made a frank statement (Indian Express news paper from Vijayawada, dated 30-4-1983) that the Polavaram dam is highly under-designed and hence a prescription for disaster. Dr.K.L..Rao ruled out the possibility of diverting surplus Godavari waters to the Krishna owing to defective designing of the Polavaram project only 1800 ft spillway was provided in the Polavaram project to clear 40 lakh cusecs of flood waters in the Godavari as against 13,000 ft long Dowlaiswaram anicut designed by Sir Arthur Cotton. Even Prakasam barrage was [over Krishna River at Vijayawada] designed to 6,280 ft. long though the flood water would not be more than 12 lakh cusecs, Dr.Rao said

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It was simple arithmetic to understand that the Polavaram design would not work, he said.

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2. In the light of these serous technical comments from a very experienced expert Dr.K.L.Rao, the Orissa and Chattisgarh state Governments demand for a revision of the Polavaram project to ensure safety of people in all the states.

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Koya tribe opposes Polavaram Dam శనివారం, సెప్టెం 1 2007

Lokayan Bulletin 11:5, 1995 (pp 82 -86)  

APPEAL 

To Withdraw Polavaram Dam   

We, the people of eight villages of Motu Tehsil (Malkangiri district, Orissa), Konta Tehsil (Bastar district, Madhya Pradesh) and Chintur Mandal (Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh), are writing this letter to you, the Chief Secretary/ Chief Minister of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh. 

We are Koitor (Koya, a scheduled tribe) people living on the banks of the Godavari and its tributaries – Sileru and Sabari. We have come to know that the AP government is planning to build a large dam across the Godavari river at Polavaram, and that the governments of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh have given consent to it. We have also learnt that the AP government is giving utmost importance to this project and that it is awaiting clearances from the Central Water Commission, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Ministry of Welfare, etc. 

We are highly displeased that the three state governments have been pursuing this project in secrecy from us – a project that threatens to take away our lands, homes, trees, places of worship and to disintegrate our society. 

We also believe that the AP government is trying to get all the clearances on the basis of false information. The information it is giving about displacement, the loss of assets, flora & fauna, and the opinion of the people in the submergence area are false. The project authorities are claiming the submergence of 250 settlements in three states. Actually, around 365 settlements would be affected. A recent study by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, made for the AP Irrigation Department, identified 276 settlements coming under submergence in AP alone. The claims of the benefits of the project are also shifting – first, it was primarily to irrigate lands in East & West Godavari districts which are relatively well irrigated, and now the AP government says that it is mainly for power generation. 

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Voices Against Displacement – Gender & Adivasi perspective శుక్రవారం , ఆగ 31 2007

Polavaram Submergence Zone

NOT JUST A PLACE TO LIVE 

In Sriramagiri panchayat, a few Kondareddi settlements want nothing to do with the relief and rehabilitation package for those who would be displaced by the Polavaram dam. Fighting off underhand tactics by officials, they are determined to remain in their homes, amidst their culture and its history. R Uma Maheshwari reports.

They said her name was Seeta mahalakshmi. It conjured up in my mind an image of a middle-aged woman, just another of those proxy women panchayat representatives. I’ve visited many other villages in V R Puram mandal of Khammam district, and one becomes familiar with the typical occupants of these offices reserved for women, but often managed by them in name only. But my mind’s image of this Kondareddi woman vanished with a pleasant surprise. Out walked a young sprightly woman, with a sportsperson’s gait, dressed in pant and shirt, her wavy hair plaited behind. A woman with doe eyes and skin like porcelain. I was introduced to Kotla Seetamahalakshmi, the 23-year-old Panchayat President of Sriramagiri panchayat, amidst the warmth of a late afternoon in early February.

Kotla Seetamahalakshmi, President of Sriramagiri panchayat (Picture by R Uma Maheshwari).

Seetamahalakshmi’s beauty is not a stereotype to bind her character in; it is something that adds to her persona, of one leader, among many, who refuses to move an inch from her stated position. Sriramagiri panchayat is one of the many that will be submerged under the Andhra Pradesh government’s proposed Indira Sagar (Polavaram) dam on the Godavari river. And its sarpanch is firmly against the dam and the government’s ‘packagi’ (the relief and rehabilitation package, as it is referred to in these parts). Her views are heartening, especially since on this particular trip, I’ve witnessed too many people from the submergence-area villages gradually losing hope and the will to resist the power of the state.

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Polavaram Dam makes Godavari Nadhi an item for consumption ఆదివారం, జూన్ 24 2007

Thalli Godavari, part of belief and folklore for millions of people for ages, is now fast changing. Godavari as Varadha Godhaari, Perntaalapalli, Kondamodalu, abode of Koya and Konda Reddy adivasis, Rampa tribal revolts under Alluri Seetarama Raju, Nelakota Gandi Pochamma, numerous streams and historical- religious villages and long trails of Gotthi Koyas from Bastar forests trekking every season for coolie works in mirchi and tobacco fields are images of Godavari etched in the minds of generations of people. It is one part of the story.  

There is a new face emerging because of Polavaram Dam. Godavari as life for people and as a space of might for the State. New faces of Godavari, sacred and profane, one that is of people and belief and one that is a site and commodity for traders. Godavari that is life and tradition and one that is being dammed and damned. Two faces of mighty Godavari river. Now also an ‘item’ for consumption

The Threat of Polavaram Dam has  has added new face to Godavari. Fear of damming the mighty river has given rise to ’special shows’ of riverscape and all that is part of three hundred and more villages with every inch of the vast stretch of forests, river and hills and valleys that is habitat of the Koya people and part of national heritage and belief system. But that is going to be lost with damning in progress where the government is directed by interests of contractors than science or cultural values or norms of democratic governance.

There is rush to catch glimpse of Godhaari thalli. Tourism focused on ‘giving last chance to see river timeless  pristine godavari has special trips, ‘record dance’ and all that of a fun and profitable business. Adds empty bottles and wrappers, disposables and filth on the riverbed. Conflict of life and profit. They ask “Bangaaru katthi ani meda kosukontamaa?” (would you like to cut your throat because the knife is made of gold). And simply they reject the damning project. Illiterate adivasis do not know to negotiate with the challenge.

A telling commenting on the changing face godhaari is the report by Uma Maheswari. I am sure it adds to the growing understanding on the destruction of ecology and people in the name of Polavaram dam.   

JOURNEY – A tale of two rivers 

The Godavari has an intrinsic bond with the lives being lived on its shores. It can also be made invisible, a conduit for tourism. Overseeing the transition is the Polavaram dam. R. UMA MAHESWARI 

The two journeys reflected the difference between people’s commerce and that of the State, in league with exploitative private profiteers 

That was a different time, a different Godavari, a different flow and a different “movement”. It was languorous, as if time stopped by, for absorbing each moment of the flow. It was in June last year, one’s first trip across this stretch of the Godavari (incidentally, the second longest river of India, running to around 900 miles) in Andhra Pradesh. It had poured the previous night and still smelt of earth after first drops of rain and a mild breeze blew. It was 3 a.m. when I stepped on to the luggage carrier launch (a medium sized steamer), or “laanchi” in local parlance, at the “laanchila revu” in Rajahmundry. I sat on the deck amidst an assortment of goods — groceries, vegetables, fruits, cardboard cartons and so on.

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