Thiruvananthapuram: Power Minister M.M. Mani said that the chances of making the 163-MW Athirappilly power project a reality looked dim. However, as a last resort, the minister is planning to hold a discussion with CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran to thrash out a consensus. “Time is running out so I need to do something fast,” the minister told DC on Saturday.
None of the activities necessary to get the project moving, be it a revised cost-benefit analysis or securing the consent of the tribes living in the proposed project or the identification of compensatory land, has been carried out. Further, two cases filed by tribals living downstream the proposed project site are still pending in the High Court. And the government has less than two months to get all the fundamentals cleared before work starts; the environment clearance granted by MoEF will expire on July 18, 2017.
Mr Mani said that CPM would like to implement the project but was helpless because of widespread opposition. “Within our front, there is CPI. That party sees red whenever the project is mentioned.
Though the Congress had supported the project earlier, it is now against it,” the minister said and added: “The project can happen, but only if there is a political consensus.”
It was at an AITUC meeting on May 12 that Mr Mani first said that the Athirappilly project was as good as dead. “It was a CPI programme and if I had said Athirappilly would happen, they would have booed me. That’s why I said it would not happen. But the truth is I would like to see the work on the project begin,” the minister said. “People hate it if there is a half-hour power cut but once you utter the word Athirappilly they write poems about lion-tailed macaque monkeys and about the environment,” he said.
