The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Telangana, is supporting an alternative plan for Polavaram Project in a bid to avoid displacement of the tribal people in the region. The plan prepared by M. Dharma Rao, retired chief engineer of united Andhra Pradesh, was released on Saturday at a press meet organised by the party.
Salient features of the alternative plan include diversion of water from Sileru river into Yeleru river through a tunnel and diversion of water from Dummugudem anicut across the Godavari river through a tunnel to meet Krishna basin requirements. One of the proposals is also to balance reservoirs on hill streams such as Sokuleru to meet the exigencies of delta and other drinking water requirements.
Mr. Rao said that this plan was a win-win situation for all the sections of people in the Eastern Ghats as it would avoid submergence and consequent adverse effects. He said that this plan would ensure that nature is protected and displacement of people can be totally avoided.
The party members opposed the Polavaram project in the present form and will do everything possible to stop it. “The project is in total violation of every legislature in the country. Nowhere in the world did three lakh people get displaced because of an irrigation project. The matter is in Supreme Court and we are mobilising support countrywide on this issue,” said P.L. Visweshwar Rao, spokesperson, AAP (Telangana).
The party is holding a round-table meeting on September 6 at the Sundarayya Vignan Kendram and has invited political party representatives, civil society members and others to deliberate on this issue as well as on the increasing farmer suicides in the new state.
The party has also released the list of about 100 farmers who had died in Telangana since the formation of the TRS government. It demanded that the government to immediately waive off farmer loans as promised and provide Rs. 20,000 to each farmer to buy quality seeds, pesticides and fertilizer.