Polavaram backwaters challenge hits wall

Hyderabad: The Polavaram Project Authority's virtual meeting on the Project's backwaters issue held on Thursday on the directive of the Supreme Court remained inconclusive with the Odisha government refusing to agree to a joint study of the problem.

The PPA called for the meeting of the officials of Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to resolve the issue. The Authority decided to hold the next meeting on October 7.

PPA chairman Pankaj Kumar, who is also the secretary of the Jal Shakti Ministry, reportedly tried to reason with the States that the submergence problem would not even be one third of the apprehended level referring to the claims of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

Previous surveys conducted in 2009 and 2011 scientifically proved that Bhadrachalam would not submerge. The meeting did not agree to the proposal of Telangana to hold a fresh survey on the said issue. It was also pointed out to the states that the AP government had assured to construct a spillway in case any submergence threat arose.

Telangana officials pointed out that the submergence of areas in Telangana had increased following the change in design of the Polavaram project and demanded the conduct of fresh assessment of flood flows during heavy rains and the study of current morphology of river Godavari.

They argued that the flood assessment in the Polavaram project was conducted 50 years ago. Without out fresh assessment, the officials said that the project works should not be taken up.

State Special Chief Secretary Rajat Kumar and Engineer-In-Chief (Irrigation ) Muralidhar demanded the Union ministry to instruct AP to bear the expenditure to be incurred on the submergence due to Polavaram in Telangana. The officials also objected to the change of design and project parameters without informing the Telangana government.