BJD To Intensify Anti-Polavaram Stir From January; Says The Project Will Submerge 150 Odisha Villages

Bhubaneswar: Shortly after senior party leader and MLA Prasanna Acharya voiced concern over the future River Mahanadi in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Saturday announced it will intensify the agitation against Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh from January.

Strongly opposing the multipurpose inter-state dam on River Godavari, the BJD announced that the party will hold a series of protests from January 2025. The protests would be held from Motu in Odisha’s Malkangiri district to New Delhi, the party said in a statement.

It said BJD president and former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given an instruction in this regard to the party cadre. However, before intensifying the stir, the BJD will get feedback of Malkangiri people on the Polavaram project issue.

BJD, the main opposition party in Odisha, also expressed apprehensions that the construction of Polavaram project, with its present design, will submerge nearly 150 villages of Motu area of Odisha.

To take stock of the ground realities and estimate the extent of Odisha’s losses, a BJD delegation had already visited Motu area in July and August this year. They also prepared a comprehensive report on the possible damage Odisha has to bear due to Polavaram project and submitted the report to party president Naveen Patnaik, the party statement said.

The BJD also stated that a seven-member delegation of the party recently visited New Delhi and met Union Minister for Jal Shakti and Chairman of Central Water Commission (CWC) among others to demand a fresh backwater study of the project.

It can be recalled that the regional outfit which ruled Odisha for nearly 24 years has been vehemently opposing the Poplavaram interstate project for years. The BJD alleges that significant changes have been made to the original design of the flood discharge capacity, increasing the capacity from 36 lakh cusecs to 50 lakh cusecs.

The party also claims that this was done without sufficient consideration of the backwater impact on the upstream states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh (earlier a part of Madhya Pradesh), which affect populations of Malkangiri, who are at could risk of losing their land and homes.

The BJD also claims that the change in the flood discharge design would increase the maximum backwater level in Odisha to 174.22 feet — it should have been 150 feet as mentioned earlier to limit submergence levels in the state.