Jharkhand Forest Department has been directed to clear all the remaining hurdles existing in the way of completion of the Mandal Dam at North Koel River at latehar district. In a high level meeting held in Delhi on Tuesday the Department along with the Department of Water Resources has expressed commitment to complete their tasks within a month’s time.
“The Forest Department has been given one month time to come up with its plan and ways how it would give its final clearance for the go ahead for the Mandal dam. All the stakeholders in the meeting expressing commitment over completion of the project have promised to remove hurdles whatsoever on their part in a month and meet again on the first week of October,” State Water Resources Minister Chandra Prakash Chaudhary told The Pioneer from Delhi over phone.
The Central Government has already given in principal Stage-I clearance which was a prerequisite for diversion of 1007.29 hectare of forest land falling near to the ecologically sensitive Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) for the Dam; standing in limbo for last over 30 year after being started in 1970.
Main contention from the Forest Department has been diversion of the forest land belonging to the acclaimed tiger reserve of the country. “This issue came for discussion during the meeting. They were asked what count of tiger in the PTR is and the Department’s officials were not sure. There is no elephant as well. We have to understand water is required for the wildlife as well as humans. The project is going to benefit Jharkhand and Bihar by providing irrigation along with hydro power,” added the Minister after the meeting also attended by officials of Water Resources Ministry and the Ministry of Environment and Forest.
He reacted positively over the development taken place and momentum generated around completing the long overdue irrigation project in recent times. “Things are looking positive now. About 98 per cent of work is completed barring issues related to forest land diversion. Relocating some villages from the site is not a big deal provided the Forest Department clears the way quickly,” said Chaudhary.
The stage-I clearance had come with certain conditions like resettling the residents, building road up to the dam site and few others for the State Government to fulfill. “We exchanged the list of pending works to each other and decided to meet again soon with compliances about those. It may be true that number of wild animal has gone down but the entire reserve is extremely sensitive which has to be taken care of,” said a forest official requesting anonymity.
As per estimate about 3.5 lakh trees need to be slashed even after the two State Governments involved agreed to lower dam’s height to 341 meter and the water retention level to even 10 meters lesser. As many as 15 villages are to be shifted from the area.
Total irrigation potential of the projects is 111, 521 hectares of which 91,917 hectares is in Bihar and 19,604 hectares in Jharkhand. Once completed, the project will generate 24 MW of electricity. The project will also provide drinking water as well as water for industrial and agricultural purposes in both Jharkhand and Bihar.