CPI (M) has threatened to stall civil work taken up by the Hinduja National Power Company Ltd (HNPCL) at Pallavalasa village near Parawada if the district administration did not restrain it to suspend construction activity.
A meeting was held with the representatives nominated by the villagers of Pallavalasa, Appikonda, Devada, K. Nayudupalem and Chinnapalem gram panchayats by Joint Collector Pola Bhaskar on Wednesday. This was the first meeting initiated to finalise resettlement and rehabilitation package.
CPI (M) district secretary Ch. Narsinga Rao, who attended the meeting as a representative of the project-affected people, said only after obtaining all the clearances, the Hinduja Group should be allowed to take up work on the thermal power project.
He said they would be constrained to stop work by force on November 1 if the authorities did not convince the project proponent to stop the civil work.
Mr. Rao told The Hindu that they brought to the notice of the Joint Collector a reply they received from the AP Pollution Control Board on whether there was any public hearing held in the past on the jinxed power project.
He said the letter clearly stated that there was no public hearing conducted for the Hinduja project.
The Hinduja Group envisaged the project in early 1990s, paid advance for 1100 acres of land and laid the foundation stone for the project in 1994.
However, due to its failure to achieve financial closure, the project was deemed to have lapsed.
Mr. Rao said they also submitted minutes of a meeting held with Hinduja officials and the then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in 2007 in which the company sought 3,000 acres for establishing 4,000 MW coal-fired power plant.
“We demanded a comprehensive environmental impact assessment on 34 villages located in the vicinity of the proposed power plant. The study should also take into consideration the adverse impact on their livelihood by Hinduja Project as well as NTPC Simhadri and Visakhapatnam Steel Plant's ongoing expansion work,” he pointed out.
Assurance
Congress corporator T. Nagi Reddy, TDP leader B. Pydiraju and others attended the meeting. The Joint Collector promised to give a detailed clarification to the points raised at the meeting at the earliest.
