Andhra Pradesh - Nalgonda   

Pulichintala hearing: retired engineer steals show

Staff Reporter

NALGONDA: A retired Chief Engineer, Vedire Venkata Reddy's forceful argument against the construction of the Pulichintala project put officials of the Environment Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI) on the defensive at the public hearing held at Mellacheruvu on Wednesday.

Armed with technical data, the convener of the Telangana Engineers Forum lashed out at the EPTRI for "erroneously'' finalising the present location between Pulichintala of Bellamkonda mandal in Guntur district and Wazinepalli of Mellacheruvu mandal in Nalgonda district.

He also charged the prestigious institution with mentioning "baseless hydrological facts about the project'' and doing poor job of finding alternative sites.

Alternative sites

Quoting the clause 1.2.5. of the environmental impact assessment manual of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, he said: "For every project, possible alternatives should be identified and environmental attributes compared. Alternatives should cover both project location and process technologies and should consider `no project' option also.''

He contended that `no project' option was not considered with regard to the Pulichintala project. "The overflow of Prakasam barrage is mainly due to copious flows of the Munner, Palair and Aker rivers which are joining river Krishna below the present Pulichintala location.

As Halia and Musi rivers, which join above the location, dried up long ago, the construction of the project at the present site does not serve any purpose,'' Mr.Reddy, who had filed a PIL in the High Court against the construction in October, 2004, said.

Coming to hydrological aspects of the project, Mr.Reddy said: "The EPTRI in its report on Pulichintala (clause 2.5) mentioned that 80 tmcft of `regulated water' is to be released from Nagarjunasagar. This is completely baseless as par the Bachawat award.'' Submitting a detailed report to the public hearing panel opposing the project, Mr.Reddy said that the technical committee would not clear the project if it went through his observations.

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