Chennai: Seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to withdraw the Union environment ministry's recommendation to Kerala to build a dam across Siruvani river at Attapadi, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Saturday asserted that there was no intimation from the environment ministry to Tamil Nadu on the project and complained that the Expert Appraisal Committee had acted with unwarranted haste without obtaining TN’s necessary comments.
The Union environment ministry, forest and climate change had not written to Tamil Nadu about the proposal or that it would be considered in the meeting of the Expert Appraisal Committee to be held on August 11 and 12 this year, she said, in a letter to the PM.
“The Expert Appraisal Committee has considered the subject as an additional agenda item in the meeting and recommended the grant of standard terms of reference for conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment Study to Kerala for the Attappady Valley Irrigation Project.
It is regrettable that this has been done in unwarranted haste without the subject being part of the regular agenda for the meeting and with no intimation to TN government, despite the latter’s earlier correspondence". In the minutes, it had been recorded that Union environment ministry had written to Tamil Nadu several times, which is factually incorrect, she said.
She opposed the recommendations of committee for river valley and hydroelectric projects in its meeting held on 11 and 12 August, this year for grant of standard terms of reference for conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study on Kerala's proposal to build a dam across Siruvani at Attappady.
“The committee has decided to recommend this without obtaining the necessary comments of Tamil Nadu government in contravention of its own decision in the meeting held on March 28 and 29, this year,” she said.
