Minister of environment and forests (MoEF) Jairam Ramesh has ordered the lifting of the stop work order on the controversial Maheshwar Hydel Project being constructed on the river Narmada in Madhya Pradesh by the S. Kumars Group of Companies.
The order will permit the construction of the last five spillway gates located at the center of the dam whose construction had been suspended due to non-compliance of several conditions.
Mr Ramesh’s statement issued on Friday has been qualified by the emphasis that “these gates will not be lowered and the reservoir will be allowed to be filled up to 154 metres till such time as all the rehabilitation and resettlement work is completed. There are 27 gates in the Maheshwar Hydel Project from which 22 had already been installed and become operational before February 17 2010.
Mr Ramesh in his statement lists out the different pulls and pressures he was subjected to in order to arrive at this decision. “Between May 2010 and December 2010, there were exchanges of letters between the state government and the MoEF and periodic reviews by the PMO in view of the fact that both the present chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan and former CM of MP Digvijay Singh were keen to recommence work on the project.”
Mr Ramesh held his ground pointing out to the PMO the tardy progress on the rehabilitation and resettlement work. The PMO, however, received another round of letters from both, Mr Chouhan and Singh, leading Mr Ramesh to once again reiterate on January 14 2011 that resumption of work must be linked with progress on the rehabilitation and resettlement.
Mr Chouhan, however, wrote another letter to the Prime Minister on January 11, 2011, threatening to go on fast if his request was not complied with. He did indeed go on fast on February 12, 2011, with one of the issues being “the delay in lifting the stop-work order on the Maheshwar Hydel Project.”