Chennai: A day after passing a resolution in the Assembly urging the Centre not to approve a recommendation of a committee of the Union environment ministry to conduct an environmental impact study on Kerala’s proposal to build a dam across Siruvani river, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa reiterated the demand in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Referring to the unanimous resolution, she said the expert appraisal committee for river valley and hydroelectric projects of the Union environment ministry, forest and climate change in its August 11 and 12 meeting, this year had recommended the grant of standard terms of reference for conducting the study on the project.
Siruvani is a sub-tributary of Cauvery, she noted and said the committee had made its recommendation without obtaining the necessary comments of Tamil Nadu in contravention of its own decision in its meeting on March 28 and 29 this year.
The decision is also contrary to a letter from Union Water Resources ministry dated 19 September 2013. The committee’s decision had caused great unrest among the farmers and general public all over Tamil Nadu.
She said the Tamil Nadu Assembly resolution had expressed regret at the manner in which the committee had made its recommendations with unwarranted haste without obtaining the consent of Tamil Nadu government and Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, besides recording in the minutes of the meeting that TN government had not responded to several letters from the Union environment ministry.
She said the resolution strongly urged the centre not to accept the recommendations of the committee and not to allow the governments of Kerala and Karnataka to take up any project in the Cauvery basin till the Cauvery Management Board and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee come into force and judicial references are finally settled.
She requested the Prime Minister to instruct the Environment and Water Resources ministries of the Union to take immediate action on the basis of the resolution passed in Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
