Polavaram Project which is already battling funds issue due to an insensitive central government has one more problem in terms of Environmental Clearances. Despite being a National Project, the Central government is still sitting on the necessary permissions needed for the projects due to the political pressure from Odisha and Telangana.
The issue now reached National Green Tribunal. The Center until now is issuing Polavaram Project Stop Work Order every year which will prevent work from happening. And days after that, the order will be put in abeyance and the project work will be allowed. This happened in UPA term and now continuing under BJP government as well.
National Green Tribunal asked the Center to clarify its stance on the project in two weeks time and post the next hearing to October 19th. It has to be seen if NGT’s involvement comes as a new roadblock for the project. Polavaram Multi-Purpose Irrigation Project comes with a total capacity of 194 TMC which will irrigate about Five Lakh Acres over Two Crops Every year. The Project will also generate 960MW of Hydel Power which is the cheapest available power in the market right now. Hence the project is said to be very beneficial for the state and is treated as the ‘Life Line’.
