Tipaimukh fails environmental clearance

25 February, 2007

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Tipaimukh fails environmental clearance

The Imphal Free Press

Imphal, Feb 25:

The controversial Tipaimukh dam project has again failed to get environmental clearance from the expert appraisal committee of the Union ministry of environment and forests, according to the Action Committee Against Tipaimukh Project, ACTIP.

Quoting reliable sources in the Union ministry, the ACTIP in a statement said the Expert Appraisal Committee for River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects which reconsidered the project on February 22 last has declined again to grant the mandatory environmental impact clearance.

The ACTIP said that the committee had re-considered the proposed 1.5 GW Tipaimukh Hydroelectric Project under great pressure from the Prime Minister`s Office (PMO).

According to ACTIP, the committee found that information provided in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and Application does not have crucial survey data of the project area during the heavy monsoon and post-monsoon seasons.

It also said that NEEPCO has given an excuse that it could not carry out the survey due to heavy insurgency in the area.

Ridiculing this excuse the ACTIP maintained that the project survey was not carried out thoroughly as NEEPCO thinks that with high-level political patronage of the PMO and Union minister Santosh Mohan Deb the clearance matter is merely a bureaucratic hurdle. `The hypocrisy and subterfuge of NEEPCO stand exposed,` it said.

The ACTIP also pointed out that there are two writ petitions before the Gauhati High Court challenging the legality and propriety of the public hearings held in Churachandpur and Tamenglong District Hqs at the DCs` office premises on November 17, 2006 and November 22, 2006 respectively.

Legal notice was also served on the EAC regarding these writ petitions, the statement added.

It further said the last time that the EAC considered this project was at an extraordinary and hurriedly convened one-day meeting of the committee on 25 November 2006.

The committee did not give environmental clearance and raised many queries regarding the project application covering a range of issues from the public hearings, the project affected families and villages, resettlement and rehabilitation, seismic information, biodiversity and the cost-benefit of the project.

It reiterated that the project, which it maintains makes unrealistic inflated claims of benefiting Manipur does not just stand up to any kind of close and serious scrutiny.

The project is a `dead end` one that is being foisted upon the people of Manipur as a political stunt, it strees.

`ACTIP condemns this continued attempt to force the environment clearance for this anti-people and anti-nature project which has no sustainable benefit to the indigenous people or land of Manipur` and reiterated its demand for review of the MOU signed between NEEPCO and the state government, `with the view of a revocation under the controversial circumstances of serious violations of the law, statutory norms, human rights and natural heritage of Manipur`.