NBA criticizes the MP government after it submitted affidavit in NGT

MADHYA PRADESH: In material placed on record on affidavit by the State Government before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), Delhi on November 22, Madhya Pradesh government has slammed company Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Company Limited (SMHPCL) which is building the privatized Maheshwar Project in the Narmada valley, for repeatedly and persistently failing to release project funds required for the rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) of the oustees of the project, claimed Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) in the statement.

As per the statement, the government has said that this is the reason timely R&R of the oustees of the project could not be carried out.

In the aforesaid affidavit filed before the NGT, the State Government has also denied its own responsibility for the rehabilitation and resettlement of the oustees of the Maheshwar dam, and has stated that it is acting only as an agent of the private company in this regard, mentioned the NBA.

Questioning the state government’s, the NBA further said that it may be pointed out that at a time when over 90 percent construction of the Maheshwar dam has been completed, and when less than 15 percent of the 60,000 persons to be displaced by the project have been resettled, and not even one single person has been rehabilitated by allotting a minimum of 2 hecatere of land, as per the R&R Policy, the stand of the state attempting to abdicate its responsibility to the private company whose miserable record in R&R, it has itself testified, leaves the oustees completely in the lurch, and is legally untenable.