The South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has accused the Uttarakhand Chief Secretarty of making a misleading claim about the forest clearances for the 120 MW Vyasi and 300 MW lakhwar projects.
A statement endorsed by 58 organisations and individuals, has been sent by Himanshu Thakkar of SANDRP to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Planning Commission and others concerned.
Thakkar states that according to the Chief Secretary’s note, the forest clearance of Vyasi project was issued by the MoEF on August 12 this year which raises suspicion that it was issued after the Supreme Court’s order on August 13 which asked that no forest or environment clearance be issued for any hydropower project in Uttarakhand till further orders.
However, to bypass the imperative of the SC order, it was dated August 12, 2013, which should be investigated if true. The Forest Advisory Committee discussed the Vyasi project last in Aug 2012 at a meet where a proposal was put forward to transfer the clearance for 99.93 hectare forest land required only for the Vyasi Project to Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam ltd from State Irrigation Department.
While discussing this proposal, FAC noted that the Vyasi project was earlier transferred to NHPC without getting the forest clearance transferred in favour of NHPC. The committee had recommended, “State Government shall examine the reasons for not obtaining prior approval of the Central Govt under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, for change of user agency from irrigation dept to NHPC and fix responsibility”, stated Thakkar.
“This means as per FAC recommendation, State Government was to examine the reasons, fix responsibility and get back to FAC, which the State Government has not done as the project has not come back to the agenda of FAC, which it should before any further decision can be taken on Vyasi project. Hence, the chief secretary’s claim that the 120 MW hydel project had received clearance on August 12 seems misleading. Moreover, it is not clear from the statement who has issued this clearance. Even if MoEF had issued this on August 12, as claimed by the CS, under Forest Conservation Act the State Government has to issue the clearance after MoEF issues it. So if the Ministry issued it last month as stated, the next step of the State Government issuing the clearance can still not be taken since SC has barred the State Government also, from issuing any clearances,” said Thakkar.
SANDRP has accused the State of trying to bypass the Apex Court order, in an illegal manner which will be challenged in the court. This also shows that the State Government has learnt no lessons from the disaster, added Thakkar.