JVM chief Babulal Marandi on Thursday alleged the BJP-ruled State Government for working in the favour of Adani Power, the firm coming up with its 1,600 MW power plant at Godda. The leader, in order to drive home his point, mentioned changes done in the Energy Policy and reducing price of land at the plant site.
“The Government is clearly playing in the hands of the company and making changes in the rules and policies set. First, they changed location of the plant, then conditions for supplying power to the State kitty laid in the earlier policy and then went ahead to reduce price of land. Even public hearings are being conducted fraudulently to suit Adani,” said Marandi in a press conference.
Public hearings conducted a few days back for approval of the power plant had been stormy. A probe team was constituted to look into the earlier ‘jan sunwai’ whereas clashes had erupted again in the March 5 hearing organised ahead of getting environmental clearance.
“The December 5 jan sunwai was fake in which locals were not allowed to take part. The Government formed a committee but another public hearing for environment organised on March 5 even before the report came. Hundreds of persons at Godda, Poraiyahat and concerned blocks have been falsely implicated ahead of the public hearing. Police were slapping cases against villagers and threatened them before the hearing. Who is going to believe this kind of consent,” asked Marandi. However, the Godda administration had held party MlA Pradeep Yadav responsible for causing disturbances at the public hearing and filed an FIR against him.
He also claimed that over 10,000 persons gathered at the venue of public hearing were against the company coming to Godda whose opinion were suppressed by using “lathi, bullet and police force. Even media persons present there were not spared whose cameras were damaged and recordings deleted. We have all the evidence with us,” said the leader. He, at the same time, also ridiculed the power major for the number of jobs to be offered to local unemployed youths.
The party has been questioning besides these issues, source of water to be supplied to the thermal power plant.
An estimate suggests that about one crore liters of water would be required to run the power plant whereas the Chir River, which is being shown as source, is by and large a seasonal river.
Nonetheless, the company representatives claimed that the power plant would be of international standards having great emission control mechanisms in place. About water supply the Adani Power has maintained that its reservoir would be suffice to meet its requirements.