New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) Tuesday directed Andhra Pradesh government to file a status report regarding the construction of Indirasagar Polavaram project, along with photographs.
A bench of Justices NV Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari also asked the state of Odisha to file its rejoinder in response to the affidavits filed by Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Union government in reply to the interim application of Odisha opposing the Union government’s decision of keeping ‘stop-work order’ to the Polavaram project in abeyance. It has granted two weeks time to Odisha to file the rejoinder.
“You have to show us the current status of the project. You have to give pictures of construction work and details regarding the project,” the bench said in oral observation.
During the hearing, the counsel appearing for Odisha submitted that no study was conducted with regard to changes in parameters.
“The parameters have been changed and we have raised objections to that,” Odisha counsel said.
The counsel for Telangana said that the assessment of backwater effect has not been done post the change in the scope of the project.
The apex court also said about constituting a commission in this regard. It also asked the respondents of AP and the Centre to respond to the queries of plaintiffs. The court adjourned the matter for two weeks.
Significantly, the SC had adjourned the matter July 9, 2019 after hearing a plea filed by Odisha against Union government’s decision to keep ‘stop work’ order to controversial Indira Sagar Polavaram project in abeyance.
It is to be mentioned here that Odisha has filed an original suit in the Supreme Court in 2011 against the AP government’s decision to build multipurpose Polavaram project on Godavari River citing that the project will lead to submergence of huge area in the state and many tribal people will lose their homes and land. During the hearings in the court, Odisha has alleged that process of environment clearance to the project has not been followed. It informed the court that public hearing was not conducted in the affected areas before granting environment clearance to the project. Odisha had demanded a ban on the construction of Polavaram project.