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dam-l LS: Press Clips on German Maheshwar Report
DECCAN HERALD
Sunday, July 9, 2000
Claims, counter-claims over MP hydel project
BHOPAL, July 8 (DHNS)
S Kumars, the promoters of the contentious ''Maheshwar hydel power
project" in Madhya Pradesh and its staunch opponent, the Narmada
Bachao Andolan (NBA) made conflicting claims about the project in
separate press conferences here on Friday.
While S Kumars accused the media of being ''biased" and charged the
NBA with unleashing an ''unfounded propaganda war" against the
project, the NBA urged the company to wash its hands off the project.
The NBA has been demanding the scrapping of the Rs 2,100 crore, 400
MW Maheshwar project on river Narmada in the Onkareshwar district of
the State, saying that it was environmentally destructive and would
produce very costly power. Maheshwar is the first hydel power project
in the country to be handed over to the private sector.
Thanks to the NBA's agitation, the project has suffered massive time
and cost over-runs. Two German companies withdrew from the project
last year saying that it would ''violate the human rights of the
oustees".
S Kumars said that the project was ''environment friendly". ''Not an
inch of forests is being submerged and only 61 villages are being
affected. And hydel power plants generate absolutely no pollutants,"
said Mr M P Jain, director of the joint venture company floated by S
Kumars for the project.
He said the average cost of power production will be Rs 2.83 per unit
over a period of 35 years. He described as ''biased" the report of a
German environment group which visited the project site and submitted
an adverse report. According to him, 90 per cent of the 1,500-odd
project affected families (PAPs) had been rehabilitated.
The NBA disputed all these facts. Mr Alok Agarwal of the organisation
said that the affected families numbered 7000, that a majority of
them had not been rehabilitated and that the project would produce Rs
15 per unit of power. He claimed that the land allotted to the oustees
was ''rocky and barren"
Economic Times
Thursday Jul 13 2000
German report criticises MP govt, Maheshwar project
Gurbir Singh
MUMBAI
A REPORT of the German development ministry has
indicted the
Maheshwar Hydroelectric Project and the Madhya
Pradesh government for
the poor relief and rehabilitation measures. The
Shree Maheshwar
Hydro-Electric Power Corporation Ltd, promoted by
the S Kumars group, is
developing the Rs 2,000-crore private sector
power project near
Mandaleshwar (Madhya Pradesh) in the Narmada river basin.
The report's likely impact on an export credit
guarantee provided by the
German government's export credit agency Hermes
is yet to be seen. The
export credit is tied to the sale of power
generation equipment from
engineering giant Siemens.
The German ministry of economic cooperation and development
commissioned the report in May, 2000. The report,
recently submitted to the
German government, has pointed out that
"significant uncertainty exists
about the amount of land to be seriously affected
(submerged or
waterlogged) by the project and there are no
apparent plans by the
authorities to remedy this problem."
Aloka Bannerjee, senior vice-president with Shree
Maheshwar Power, said
any cancellation of loan would not affect the
project since the company had
arranged financial guarantees from an alternative
consortium of banks.
She, however, clarified that she could not
comment on the report since the
company had not yet obtained a copy.
''We were expecting this. The German ministry has
been working
hand-in-glove with the Narmada Bachao Andolan,"
responded Mukul
Kasliwal on behalf of the S Kumars group. "The
German government has
been dilly-dallying since 1998, and they
commissioned this report because
an earlier German Embassy survey had okayed the
rehabilitation
measures," he added.
Kasliwal also alleged that one of the German team
members, Shekhar
Singh, was a known opponent of power projects.
The German development ministry has been involved
with the project since
the single largest foreign component of the
hydroelectric project is a Rs 500
crore loan from the German bank, the Hypo
Vereinsbank. Since the loan is
tied to the purchase of power equipment from
Siemens, the company had
applied for an export guarantee for the project.
Initially, the Christian Democratic government
had cleared the project in
1997, but with the Social Democrat-Green
coalition coming to power in
1998, the project came under review.
The German ministry of development subsequently
commissioned a team of
environmental experts to study the Maheshwar project.
----------------
NBA waves new German report against Maheshwar dam
The Times of India News Service
NEW DELHI: The Narmada Bachao Andolan has once
again called upon
the Union and Madhya Pradesh governments to scrap
the controversial
Maheshwar project on the Narmada river. To lend
strength to its demand,
the NBA has cited a recent report prepared by
experts at the behest of the
German development ministry.
The report, among other things, says that the
relief and rehabilitation (R and
R) policy presently being implemented is
inadequate and ``the resources and
capability to carry out R and R in accordance with
the stated policy and
conditions of clearance do not exist''.
The development ministry figures in the picture
since the German company
Siemens had sought an export guarantee from the
German government to
provide turbines for the project. In fact, in the
light of the report, NBA has
urged the German government not to provide any
guarantee. ``The German
government must withdraw following this report,''
said Chittaroopa Palit of
the NBA on Tuesday.
The report also notes that ``significant
uncertainty exists about the amount
of land to be seriously affected (submerged or
water-logged) by the
project....'' and that, ``for identification of
the scale of the project, a complete
socio-economic survey would normally be taken, but
does not appear to
exist in Maheshwar.''
The Maheshwar hydro-electric project being
executed by S Kumars is the
first privatised hydel project in the country. NBA
estimates it will affect
nearly 40,000 people and submerge thousands of
acres of land.
The three-member team comprising Shekhar Singh of
the Indian Institute of
Public Administration (he is also a member of the
environmental sub-group
of the Narmada Control Authority), Richard E
Bissell, former chairman of
the World Bank's inspection panel, and Hermann
Warth, environmental
consultant to the German and Austrian governments,
toured the area
recently.
And here is a bit of what their report has to say:
* On the number of project affected persons: ``All
parties agree that such
numbers will change, but they disagree over the
scale...The Madhya Pradesh
Electricity Board (MPEB) agrees that a new survey
is needed, but it has
been done in only one village out of 61....''
* On the MPEB: ``The MPEB has been contracted by S
Kumars to carry
out R and R. However, according to their
officials, the MPEB has little or no
experience in implementing R and R. In fact, MPEB
- though implementing
R and R - ``did not have family-wise list of
land-holdings nor a list of who
had sold their land, who had been paid an advance...''
* On land availability for the displaced:
``According to the principal
secretary, energy, MP, there is no agricultural
land available in the area for
whatever land there is has been cultivated or
encroached upon.''
The report is also critical of the information
given regarding the resettlement
process, noting the residents' anguish at having
to ``pay the price for the
project by being displaced from their traditional
homes (though) they were
never once consulted about the project.