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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | AASU waves letter on dam

AASU waves letter on dam

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published Published on Jan 8, 2012   modified Modified on Jan 8, 2012
-The Telegraph


The All Assam Students’ Union today said it possessed a letter written by the Arunachal Pradesh government to the NHPC in 2005 asking the power company to suspend work at Lower Subansiri hydel project in the greater interest of that state.

The Planning Commission has blamed a “communication gap” between state governments of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, NHPC and the protesters over the ongoing stand-off and said that it could be sorted out through dialogue.

“If the Arunachal Pradesh government can write such a letter to the NHPC, why can the Assam government not do the same in the greater interest of the Assamese people? Will the Tarun Gogoi government dare to ask the NHPC to stop work at the Lower Subansiri till the experts find an alternative solution to the downstream impact of the project?” Tapan Gogoi, the general secretary of AASU asked, while circulating the photocopies of the letter among the media this evening.

Gogoi said the AASU and 26 other organisations were currently monitoring the activities of NHPC at Gogamukh in Dhemaji district and Naoboicha in Lakhimpur district to prevent any attempt by the Central PSU to carry construction materials to the project site.

The AASU on Thursday said they would be forced to resort to a statewide agitation in case the NHPC starts transporting materials to the Lower Subansiri project site during their discussion with the government.

On Thursday, the group of ministers held talks with the anti-dam protesters, including the AASU and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, to find an amicable solution to the stand-off following blockade of supplies to NHPC and Arunachal Pradesh. The Northeast adviser (Planning Commission), S.N. Brohmochoudhury, said during a brief stopover at the airport here that there was misconception in the NHPC about the public protest and about safety aspects among the protesters and that no serious attempts had been made for joint dialogues to remove the misconception.

“The state governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, NHPC and the protesters should sit together to remove misconceptions about the project and concerns of the protesters. A serious attempt is required to remove the stand-off. After all, the 2000MW power project is for the benefit of the Northeast,” Brohmochoudhury said at the LGBI Airport at Borjhar here.

He and another member of the Planning Commission, Soumitra Choudhury, were on a four-day visit to Arunachal Pradesh to assess the bottlenecks in the foodgrain supply in the state and the communication bottlenecks.

On the concerns raised by protesters about the downstream impact of the big dam and hydel power project, Brohmochoudhury said, “I am not a dam expert but during our visit to the dam site, we were briefed about the safety aspect. I feel that these should be properly conveyed to all the parties, including the protesters. The power project will benefit Arunchal Pradesh in their resource utilisation and at the same time will help Assam to meet the power requirement.”

The KMSS has latched on to Thursday’s dam break in Rio De Janerio in Brazil to underline the immediate need to suspend work on the NHPC project.

Its assistant secretary Bedanta Laskar told The Telegraph that the dam break has proved what they had been saying all along about the safety of the project.

“We want the authorities to take lessons from the dam break. Over 80 persons have been killed, thousands displaced, emergency declared in several towns and cities,” Laskar said, adding that they will continue with their blockade of supply of construction materials to NHPC till work was suspended.


The Telegraph, 8 January, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120108/jsp/frontpage/story_14978261.jsp


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