Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Saturday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s immediate intervention to withdraw the recommendations of the Centre’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for conducting an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for a dam proposed by Kerala across the Siruvani river.
In her letter to Mr. Modi, the Chief Minister said the EAC for River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, in its meeting on August 11 and 12, had recommended grant of Standard Terms of Reference for conducting an EIA to build a dam across the Siruvani at Attappady.
The EAC has decided to recommend this without obtaining the necessary comments of the Tamil Nadu government in contravention of its own decision at the meeting held on March 28 and 29, 2016.
The Siruvani river is a sub-tributary of the Cauvery, which is an inter-State river. As early as June 21, 2012, Ms. Jayalalithaa said she had written to the then Prime Minister to advise Kerala not to proceed with the Attappady Valley Irrigation Project in violation of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal’s (CWDT) final order.
The Central Water Commission was also advised not to accord technical clearance for Kerala’s proposal of building the dam across the Siruvani. Subsequently, the Tamil Nadu government wrote several times, both to the MoEF and Kerala government, strongly objecting to the project.
The MoEF has not written to the Tamil Nadu government about the proposal or that it would be considered at the 96th meeting of the EAC held on August 11 and 12, she said, adding that the committee had considered the subject as an additional agenda (Table Agenda) item and recommended the grant of Standard ToR.
“It is regrettable that this has been done in unwarranted haste without the subject being part of the regular agenda for the meeting and with no intimation to the Tamil Nadu government, despite the earlier correspondence from Tamil Nadu. In the minutes, it has been recorded that the MoEF has written to Tamil Nadu government several times, which is factually incorrect,” she said.
She pointed out to the Prime Minister that the governments of Kerala and Karnataka had appealed in the Supreme Court against the final order of the CWDT, and Tamil Nadu had also approached the Supreme Court on certain aspects of the final order.
All the Party States, including Kerala, have also filed clarification petitions before the CWDT under section 5(3) of the Inter State River Water Disputes Act, 1956.
“These petitions are pending. In these circumstances, it is only proper for the Party States to await the formation of the Cauvery Management Board and further judicial decisions before initiating any new scheme in the Cauvery Basin or its sub basins,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said.
Seeking the Prime Minister’s intervention for withdrawal of the EAC’s recommendations, she requested him to advise the MoEF and its agencies and the Ministry of Water Resources not to accord any clearance to the projects in the Cauvery basin of Kerala and Karnataka till the Cauvery Management Board and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee come into force and judicial references are finally settled.
