An RTI document exposed the hollow claim of the Odisha Government of having conducted an environmental and social impact study for the controversial mega piped water supply project on the Kharasrota river in Kendrapada.
If the RTI information is to be believed, then no such environmental and social impact study has been carried out for the project and all that was said regarding it was sheer falsehood.
The expose is enough to construe that the Kendrapada district administration and the State Government had nodded for the piped water project by falsely claiming that the IIT, Hyderabad had conducted the environmental and social impact assessment study. The foul play came to the fore following the IIT, Hyderabad provided information under RTI on September 27 to one Pratap Chandra Mohanty, a rights activist of Talasanga village, that it had conducted no study as such.Mohanty, the RTI activist on last August 27 had filed an RTI application to the IIT, Hyderabad, seeking a copy of report of environmental and social impact study of the pipe water supply project in Kharasrota river near Kanika Tehsil under Kendrapada district and Chandabali block of Bhadrak district.
Responding to the RTI application of Mohanty, the Deputy Registrar and CPIO of IIT , Hyderabad , Syed Ali Sabeer, in letter no-IITH/2020/RTI/MS dated 27.09.2021 gave information that no such report is submitted by the IIT, Hyderabad to the Government of Odisha.
The IIT Hyderabad in its reply through RTI informed to the applicant that the Government of Odisha did not award the project for environment assessment to it. Notably, district Collector Amrut Ruturaj, had informed to mediapersons that a 173-page DPR was prepared by the IIT, Hyderabad on the project, besides reports of scientists of OUAT. As per the report, only 5 per cent of water is going to be drawn for the project.The river will not be dried up; neither will it have any adverse impact on the Bhitarkanika bio -diversity and the environment of the locality, the Collector said as having stated by the reports. Meanwhile, intellectual masses here have condemned the State Government and district administration for hoodwinking the people.
It seems the State Government has been carrying out the project owing to a corporate lobby to provide water to a company and a port in Bhadrak district, they said.
In the latest development, the Orissa High Court on Monday granted conditional bail to 23 Kharasrota Banchao Sangram Samiti( KBSS) members.
Notably, the Rajkanika police on August 13 had arrested as many as 24 persons, who were involved in vandalism and came to blows with the police personnel during a face-off that erupted on August 12 while the police tried to restrict a horde of villagers, who came under the banner of Kharasrota Banchao Sangram Samiti (KBSS), to protest construction of the Barunidiha –based piped water project.