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dam-l LS: Statesman Articles on IRN Maheshwar Statement
Ogden pledges care of oustees
DESIKAN THIRUNARAYANAPURAM
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON, March 29. — A US company involved in the controversial
Maheshwar Dam project on the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh has said it is
sensitive to the problems of those the project will displace.
"We have taken great steps towards resolving the issue in the
interest of the affected families," a senior Ogden Energy Corporation
official said yesterday. Mr Kent Burton, senior vice-president for
policy
and international governmental relations, was reacting to a letter
from a group of environmental organisations asking the company to
withdraw from the project.
The letter, written by the California-based International Rivers
Network and endorsed by 124 organisations from 27 countries, said:
"NGOs will not hesitate to inform the shareholders and other
stakeholders of Ogden Corporation about the social, environmental,
legal and financial
risks of the Maheshwar project."
According to the IRN and the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the Maheshwar
Dam would submerge about 1,100 hectares of rich agricultural land and
displace more than 35,000 people in 61 villages. Mr Burton said he
had met three Indian-American representatives of the NBA in New York
recently to reassure them on the proposed resettlement of displaced
villagers. The steps, which he didn't elaborate, would be carried out
in collaboration with the Madhya Pradesh government.
The IRN had claimed that no representative of the company visited the
affected areas. But Mr Burton said he visited the villages last
Saturday and met the those who will be affected. "There were some
protesters but most families we saw were pleased and appreciative of
the project."
He denied the environmentalists’ claim that the 400 MW hydropower
project would make electricity too expensive for the poor villagers.
Source: Statesman, Calcutta, March 29, 2000
Green group's red signal on dam
DESIKAN THIRUNARAYANAPURAM
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON, March 28. A leading international environmental group has
urged a US company to withdraw from the controversial Maheshwar dam
project on the River Narmada.
New York-based Ogden Corporation signed a memorandum of intent on 23
March with the Madhya Pradesh government and S Kumar's for the 400
megawatt Maheshwar Hydropower project as part of President Bill
Clinton's India visit. The California-based International Rivers
Network,
in a letter endorsed by 124 organisations from 27 countries, called on Ogden
Corporation to withdraw from the project.
According to IRN and the Narmada Bachao Andolan,
the Maheshwar dam would submerge about 1,100 hectares of rich agricultural
land and displace more than 35,000 people in 61 villages.
The dam's serious financial risk and intense
opposition to it caused US power utility company PacifiCorp to back out of the
project in 1998 and the German utilities Bayernwerk and VEW Energie to pull out
in April 1999.
In a statement, the IRN spokesman, Mr Patrick
McCully, said: "Electricity generated by the dam will cost four to five times
more than other electricity generated in Madhya Pradesh and will be
prohibitively expensive for local consumers."
The Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board (MPEB) has
guaranteed the project developers a return on equity of 16 per cent for
the next 35 years, whether or not the expected amount of power is produced.
As the MPEB is on the verge of bankruptcy and
cannot afford this annual payment, it has proposed to cut subsidised
connections for the poor and substantially increase tariffs, Mr McCully said.
In response to popular opposition, Madhya Pradesh
government formed a task force in 1998 to review the dam project. At the
end of eight months of deliberations, the task force submitted a report
which detailed cheaper and better power alternatives to the Maheshwar project.
Ogden Energy, which signed the Maheshwar
agreement, is a wholly owned unit of Ogden Corporation which has
interests in airline
services, entertainment, environmental and energy sectors.
"The company has no experience with large dam
projects. Its current portfolio contains only six small hydroelectric
dams (four
in the USA and two in Costa Rica) with an average generating capacity of 20
megawatts each," Mr McCully said. S Kumar's, which is a textile firm,
also has no
previous experience of dam-building.
The IRN letter to the Ogden Corporation president
and CEO, Mr Scott Mackin, urges the company "to withdraw from Maheshwar and
decline involvement in a project which is based on the destruction of local
people's livelihood."
The letter said the environmental organisations
which signed it "are determined to support and publicise the struggle of the
villagers in the Narmada Valley. NGOs will not hesitate to inform the
shareholders
and other stakeholders of Ogden Corporation about the social, environmental,
legal and financial risks of the Maheshwar project."
When news of Ogden's interest in the Maheshwar dam
was first reported in India in late 1999, local people who faced displacement
wrote to the company insisting that Ogden representatives should visit the
affected villages before deciding on their investment. In February
this year, nearly
300 elected representatives of the affected area sent Ogden a
resolution opposing the
project. "Ogden has failed to reply to these demands. No Ogden official has yet
visited any of the affected villages or spoken to their representatives," Mr
McCully said.