Central Water Commission[CWC] is not a competent organization as per section 45 of the Evidence Act which is known to the Additional solicitor General[ASG] as some of the decicision makers are experts with basic engineering degrees in fields other than Civil and environmental engineering whose skills are relevant in making a sound design of the Polavaram dam project.The incompetent nature of the CWC has been made public with the secrecy of their dealings in case of Alamatti dam back water Level estimations and dam Break analysis reports as can be seen from the following web site:
http://www.sandrp.in/dams/PR_on_CIC_order_to_CWC_to_make_the_Almatti_backwater_study_public_Feb_16_2011.PDF
First of all Polavaram barrage as advocated by Eminent expert engineers like Sir Arthur Cotton,Dr.K.L.Rao and Union Government technical expert committees headed by Dr.A.N.Khosla [1953]Mr.Gulhati[1963] and Mr.A.C.Mitra [1965]was mainly intended to use Godavari waters for irrigating the upland areas Coastal Andhra Districts.But when the Karnataka and Maharashtra states agitated to get more Krishna water by diverting the Godavari waters into Krishna river, the A.P.state Government headed by Dr.M.Chenna Reddy coerced Karnataka to enter into an agreement on 4th. August,1978 that subject to clearance of Polavaram project with F.R.L.at +150 M.S.L.by Central Water Commission,{CWC]A.P.state agrees to divert 80 TMC of Godavari water into Krishna for subsequent use of 35 TMC of Krishna water by Karnataka and Maharashtra. Again on 25-2-1980 and during the discussions before Bachawat Tribunal during 19-3-1980 and 2-4-1980.
Virtually A.P.State told the Tribunal that they will compensate for submersion in the upper states upto +175 M.S.L and threatened the basin states thus,'If the condition of F.R.L/M.W.L.+150 feet at the [polavaram]Dam site is changed,there can be no question of the diversion of Godavari waters into the Krishna River at all.'
Under Section[10] of the Indian Contract Act,1872,this inter-state agreement on Polavaram Project is not based on free consent of the parties and it is under undue influence from both A.P.state and Central Water Commission and Union Ministry of Water resources because Union Government stated in writing on 26-3-1980 before the Tribunal that Polavaram Dam with F.R.L./M.W.L.at +150 feet is technically feasible.On 3-4-1980 Union Government guaranteed the tribunal that Polavaram project shall be cleared by the Central Water Commission[CWC] for F.R.L/M.W.L.+150 feet.
Basin states,CWC and Union Government fixed the following parameters:
1]Spill-way design flood at 36 lakhs cusecs.
2]F.R.L/M.W.L.of Polavaram Dam at +150 feet at dam site.
3]A.P.state willing to compensate in terms of money/build embankments to avoid submersion in Orissa and Chattisgarh,upto +175 feet,M.S.L.
First parameter is changed from 36 to 50 lakhs cusec.by CWC in 2006
Third parameter is going to change from 175 ft. to 195 ft.
Second parameter is going to augment incremental floods,causing deaths of 50 lakhs people in Godavari Delta since the extreme floods will rise to 93 lakhs cusecs and existing flood embankments will collapse due to an inevitable dam burst for one reason or the other.
Polavaram project is not at all being constructed as per the original conditions stipulated by the Bachawat Tribunal report of April,1980.
For more details see the following web sites by international experts
http://tshivajirao.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-dr-klrao-warned-about-collapse-of.html
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/blog/shivajirao32/9388
http://www.sandrp.in/dams/PR_on_CIC_order_to_CWC_to_make_the_Almatti_backwater_study_public_Feb_16_2011.PDF
First of all Polavaram barrage as advocated by Eminent expert engineers like Sir Arthur Cotton,Dr.K.L.Rao and Union Government technical expert committees headed by Dr.A.N.Khosla [1953]Mr.Gulhati[1963] and Mr.A.C.Mitra [1965]was mainly intended to use Godavari waters for irrigating the upland areas Coastal Andhra Districts.But when the Karnataka and Maharashtra states agitated to get more Krishna water by diverting the Godavari waters into Krishna river, the A.P.state Government headed by Dr.M.Chenna Reddy coerced Karnataka to enter into an agreement on 4th. August,1978 that subject to clearance of Polavaram project with F.R.L.at +150 M.S.L.by Central Water Commission,{CWC]A.P.state agrees to divert 80 TMC of Godavari water into Krishna for subsequent use of 35 TMC of Krishna water by Karnataka and Maharashtra. Again on 25-2-1980 and during the discussions before Bachawat Tribunal during 19-3-1980 and 2-4-1980.
Virtually A.P.State told the Tribunal that they will compensate for submersion in the upper states upto +175 M.S.L and threatened the basin states thus,'If the condition of F.R.L/M.W.L.+150 feet at the [polavaram]Dam site is changed,there can be no question of the diversion of Godavari waters into the Krishna River at all.'
Under Section[10] of the Indian Contract Act,1872,this inter-state agreement on Polavaram Project is not based on free consent of the parties and it is under undue influence from both A.P.state and Central Water Commission and Union Ministry of Water resources because Union Government stated in writing on 26-3-1980 before the Tribunal that Polavaram Dam with F.R.L./M.W.L.at +150 feet is technically feasible.On 3-4-1980 Union Government guaranteed the tribunal that Polavaram project shall be cleared by the Central Water Commission[CWC] for F.R.L/M.W.L.+150 feet.
Basin states,CWC and Union Government fixed the following parameters:
1]Spill-way design flood at 36 lakhs cusecs.
2]F.R.L/M.W.L.of Polavaram Dam at +150 feet at dam site.
3]A.P.state willing to compensate in terms of money/build embankments to avoid submersion in Orissa and Chattisgarh,upto +175 feet,M.S.L.
First parameter is changed from 36 to 50 lakhs cusec.by CWC in 2006
Third parameter is going to change from 175 ft. to 195 ft.
Second parameter is going to augment incremental floods,causing deaths of 50 lakhs people in Godavari Delta since the extreme floods will rise to 93 lakhs cusecs and existing flood embankments will collapse due to an inevitable dam burst for one reason or the other.
Polavaram project is not at all being constructed as per the original conditions stipulated by the Bachawat Tribunal report of April,1980.
For more details see the following web sites by international experts
http://tshivajirao.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-dr-klrao-warned-about-collapse-of.html
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/blog/shivajirao32/9388
The Additional Solicitor General Raval and the Maharashtra Advocate Andhyarujina should not be afraid of facing the true facts but should develop courage and patriotism to work for pursuit of the right methods of development of Polavaram project that ensures safety of the people the dam and the economic wealth of the nation instead of opting for the wrong methods of development that result in mass scale evacuation of lakhs of tribals and killing of millions of people downstream of the dam due to an inevitable dam collapse. It is widely know that some of the decision makers in the Central Water Commission (CWC) are experts in mechanical and other fields than the relevant civil and environmental engineering fields that mostly governed the design criteria for the development of an ecologically sound environmentally safe and structurally strong Polavaram dam project. As per Sec.45 of the Evidence Act they should cross examine all the relevant individual decision makers who produced the design for the Polavaram dam and they should be brought for cross examination and asked to certify the safety of the dam and give assurance that the non-fulfillment of the conditions as per Orissa High Court orders should result in pledging of the properties of these experts who vouchsafe for the non-failure of the dam and non-submersion of villages, agriculture fields and forests in Orissa. Unless such conditions of accountability are guaranteed by the experts, officials and others arguing for the promotion of this killer dam, the Supreme Court judges should refused to be carried away by the false assurances being given on behalf of the various Union Ministires of Environment and Forest , Water Resources, CWC, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power and other Union and AP State Government agencies and the concerned officials involved in decision making. This kind of security should be provided by the promoters of the project because one of the American Environmentalist Dr.Rene Dubos said that “a nation which blindly believes in its experts is a nation on its way to death”. So blind belief in the expertise of the CWC experts is a tantamount to blind belief of the Indian Nation in the honesty of Union Minister A.Raja of the 2G Spectrum Scandal.
The affidavit filed in the Supreme Court by the Central Water Commission (CWC) on Polavaram dam is misleading and false. The contention of CWC that the Bachawat Tribunal of 1980 settled all issues of submersion is invalid because it is based on the condition of 36 lakh cusecs design flood which was increased to 50 lakh cusecs in August 2006and hence the award is not valid anymore. Orissa High Court considered a writ petition and ordered in March 2006 that Polavaram dam shall not cause submersion of any land in Orissa and this judgement was accepted by the Union Government. In order to comply with the Orissa High Court orders, CWC directed AP State to construct embankment structures to avoid submersion of lands in Orissa AP state prepared an estimate for Rs.700 crores for embankment structures and asked for Environmental clearance for this project in February, 2009. But the Environmental clearance was not given because the AP State did not get the consent of Orissa and Chattisgarh so far. Investment clearance by Planning Commission is based upon hasty and defective technical clearance by the Technical Advisory Committee of the Union Ministry of Water Resources which is again based upon a defective environmental clearance based upon an incomplete EIA report that contains false and insufficient details of Risk and Dam Break Analysis , disaster and Environmental Management reports. The Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) of 50 lakh cusecs estimated by CWC is erroneous because National Institute of Hydrology used 60 lakh cusecs as the inflow design flood based on 36 lakh cusecs for preparing the Dam Break Analysis report 1999 as desired by the AP State Government. The dam safety as presumed by the CWC is false because Dr.K.L.Rao warned in April 1983 that due to defective design of Polavaram dam it is bound to fail. If the scenario of extreme floods of 26.4 lakh cusecs that occurred in Krishna in October, 2009 is applied to Godavari catchment the extreme flood at Polavaram can be estimated at 90 lakhs cusecs and the dam safety cannot be ensured and consequential dam burst will result in killing 50 lakhs of people downstream, causing more than one lakh crores worth of property losses. The embankments cannot provide even temporary solutions as observed all over the world. In fact the dykes constructed at Bhadrachalam to contain the Godavari floods always resulted in submersion of the residential colonies as the drainage arrangements mostly failed due to obstruction caused by the embankments. Even in Rajahmundry city the embankments failed to avoid submersion of residential colonies since the local drains emptying into Godavari failed to get emptied even by pumping arrangements that mostly failed due to several reasons. These frequent problems of failure of embankments are not appreciated by CWC because of dearth of experts in the CWC who have adequate exposure to field investigations, designs, construction, operation and maintenance of irrigation flood control works. The Bachawat Tribunal insisted that the design of the Polavaram dam must be based not only on the interstate agreement of 1978 but also the agreement of 1980 as far as practicable and it clearly emphasized that if any changes are to be made in the stipulated conditions the consent of the other states must be obtained . since the critical design criteria of PMF changed from 36 lakh cusecs in 1980 to 50 lakh cusecs in 2006 there is need for reformulation of the Polavaram Dam into safe Barrages project in consultation with Orissa and Chattisgarh states.
The affidavit filed in the Supreme Court by the Central Water Commission (CWC) on Polavaram dam is misleading and false. The contention of CWC that the Bachawat Tribunal of 1980 settled all issues of submersion is invalid because it is based on the condition of 36 lakh cusecs design flood which was increased to 50 lakh cusecs in August 2006and hence the award is not valid anymore. Orissa High Court considered a writ petition and ordered in March 2006 that Polavaram dam shall not cause submersion of any land in Orissa and this judgement was accepted by the Union Government. In order to comply with the Orissa High Court orders, CWC directed AP State to construct embankment structures to avoid submersion of lands in Orissa AP state prepared an estimate for Rs.700 crores for embankment structures and asked for Environmental clearance for this project in February, 2009. But the Environmental clearance was not given because the AP State did not get the consent of Orissa and Chattisgarh so far. Investment clearance by Planning Commission is based upon hasty and defective technical clearance by the Technical Advisory Committee of the Union Ministry of Water Resources which is again based upon a defective environmental clearance based upon an incomplete EIA report that contains false and insufficient details of Risk and Dam Break Analysis , disaster and Environmental Management reports. The Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) of 50 lakh cusecs estimated by CWC is erroneous because National Institute of Hydrology used 60 lakh cusecs as the inflow design flood based on 36 lakh cusecs for preparing the Dam Break Analysis report 1999 as desired by the AP State Government. The dam safety as presumed by the CWC is false because Dr.K.L.Rao warned in April 1983 that due to defective design of Polavaram dam it is bound to fail. If the scenario of extreme floods of 26.4 lakh cusecs that occurred in Krishna in October, 2009 is applied to Godavari catchment the extreme flood at Polavaram can be estimated at 90 lakhs cusecs and the dam safety cannot be ensured and consequential dam burst will result in killing 50 lakhs of people downstream, causing more than one lakh crores worth of property losses. The embankments cannot provide even temporary solutions as observed all over the world. In fact the dykes constructed at Bhadrachalam to contain the Godavari floods always resulted in submersion of the residential colonies as the drainage arrangements mostly failed due to obstruction caused by the embankments. Even in Rajahmundry city the embankments failed to avoid submersion of residential colonies since the local drains emptying into Godavari failed to get emptied even by pumping arrangements that mostly failed due to several reasons. These frequent problems of failure of embankments are not appreciated by CWC because of dearth of experts in the CWC who have adequate exposure to field investigations, designs, construction, operation and maintenance of irrigation flood control works. The Bachawat Tribunal insisted that the design of the Polavaram dam must be based not only on the interstate agreement of 1978 but also the agreement of 1980 as far as practicable and it clearly emphasized that if any changes are to be made in the stipulated conditions the consent of the other states must be obtained . since the critical design criteria of PMF changed from 36 lakh cusecs in 1980 to 50 lakh cusecs in 2006 there is need for reformulation of the Polavaram Dam into safe Barrages project in consultation with Orissa and Chattisgarh states.
Prof.T.Shivaji Rao,
Director, Center for Environmental Studies,
GITAM University, Visakhapatnam-45
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