Union Water Resources Minister Harish Rawat rebutted all the objections of the Odisha Government on the Polavaram dam. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik in his letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 24, 2012 had raised several objections and sought the personal intervention of the Prime Minister to stop the tendering process of the dam till the Supreme Court adjudicated and disposed of the matter.
Patnaik had stated that the formulation of the Polavaram project is in complete violation of the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal (GWDT) award but Rawat in his reply to Patnaik wrote that the Polavaram project is completely in congruence with GWDT 1980 award. All the stipulations of GWDT 1980 have been taken care of by the Central Water Commission during techno-economic appraisal of the Polavaram project, he said.
Patnaik had said that the Government of Odisha had filed a suit in the Supreme Court in October 2007 against the construction of the project besides a series of interlocutory applications and requested the Prime Minister to stop the tendering for the construction of the project till the court gives its final ruling.
However, Rawat’s said no verdict had been delivered by the Supreme Court against the implementation of the Polavaram project in response to the interlocutory applications filed by the Government of Odisha.
Responding to Patnaik’s contention that the project would result in large scale submergence in the Malkangiri district and that the proposal of the Government of Andhra Pradesh to have embankments was not a sound proposition and could not be treated as a measure to contain the submergence within the river banks during floods, Rawat said in order to protect the land from submergence falling under the territory of Odisha, protective embankments with adequate drainage sluices had been proposed, the cost of which was to be met out of the Polavaram project by Government of AP.
“It is stated that construction of flood embankments along the rivers and adjoining important places is an old age practice and considered to be standard solution against flooding/submergence, which is not only adopted in India but also throughout the world for centuries,” the Union Minister argued.