New Delhi: Shocked over the severe flood situation in Kerala, a Parliamentary Committee on Water Resources has suggested the central government commission the Attappady irrigation project at the earliest.
"The Attappady irrigation project, despite getting approval from the Supreme Court, has not yet got clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Keeping in view the recurring floods in Kerala, the Ministry of Jal Shakti should take up this issue with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and impress upon them to grant clearance without delay so that this much-needed project could be commissioned at the earliest," the committee said in its report.
Headed by Lok Sabha MP Dr Sanjay Jaiswal, the committee said that the typical topography of Kerala along with high-intensity rainfall during monsoon are the key reasons for the severe flood crisis in the state. "The rapid urbanization and high population density have led to drastic changes in land use pattern, and low lands reclamation that used to provide a cushioning effect to the flood waters and the obstructions caused to the natural drainages have worsened the impact caused by floods," the committee said.
The committee noted that most of the dams in Kerala were constructed between 1960 and 1980 and were primarily meant for meeting the needs of irrigation, industrial, power generation, and driving water. "The capacity of reservoirs in Kerala is stated to be very limited and these can store only 7 percent of available water. The state could not commission any new reservoir and dam projects since the 1980s due to the stringent environment and forest laws and the resistance from the environmental groups," the committee said.
The Attappady irrigation project, a medium irrigation project, envisages the construction of a concrete gravity dam across the Siruvani river, a tributary of the Bhavani river at Chittur in the Palakkad district of Kerala to irrigate a gross command area of 8,738 hectares. The representatives from the Jal Shakti ministry told the committee that the investigation of the project started in 1970 and preliminary works such as survey, investigation, geological survey, etc have been completed.
"227.73 hectares of land have been acquired and the remaining 74,267 hectares of forest land remains to be acquired," the ministry said. For carrying out the Environment Impact Assessment study (EIA), the approval of ToR (Terms of Reference) is awaited from MoEF&CC and the State government of Kerala is pursuing the matter with the State government of Tamil Nadu.
"The revised DPR of Attappady irrigation project is under various stages of appraisal in CWC, particularly, its examination from inter-State angle involving states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and UT of Puducherry," the Jal Shakti Ministry said.
