The Utkal Sammilani on Tuesday staged a demonstration in front of Raj Bhavan here protesting the Centre’s decision to allow the Andhra Pradesh Government to resume construction work of the Polavaram dam project by ignoring interests of Odisha people.
A delegation led by Utkal Sammilani State president Guruprasad Mohanty submitted a memorandum to Governor SC Jamir urging him to talk with the Centre about their anguish and demand.
In the memorandum, Sammilani questioned as to how Union Minister for Environment, Forests Prakash Javadekar allowed the Andhra Government to resume the project work without completion of the statutory public hearings in Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
The Sammlani delegation including vice-president Binod Bihari Mohapatra, who belongs to Koraput, said the project would submerge more than 12 villages of Motu tehsil in Malkangiri district. It would also submerge several hectares of agricultural land, schools and hospital.
The Sammilani’s Mancheswar branch president Dillip Dassharma said both the victim States had approached the Supreme Court against the project and the court’s verdicts are pending. The Union Minister gave go-ahead to the Andhra Government for the project illegally defying the ‘stop-work order’ given by the Centre in 2011.
The Sammilani leaders said they would take the issue to the street if the Centre doesn’t reconsider its decision.