Green Nod To Polavaram Project: SC Asks Centre, Andhra Pradesh To File Counter In Three Weeks

New Delhi/ Bhubaneswar: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to the Centre and the Andhra Pradesh government over environmental clearances for the Polavaram project.

Going through the content of the petition filed by the Odisha government, a division bench of the apex court comprising Justice Madan B Lokur and Dipak Gupta directed the Centre and the Andhra Pradesh to file their counter within three weeks.

The apex court will hold the next hearing on the matter after four weeks.

Talking to the media, Supreme Court lawyer Shravan Kumar said that the apex court note of the original suit filed by Odisha and the Readiness for Empowerment Through Legitimate Action (RELA), Hyderabad-based NGO is pending since long.

This was the third petition filed by the Odisha government. In the earlier petition, the state government had alleged that the construction work on the Polavaram irrigation project is in violation of the Godavari Water Dispute Tribunal Award.

It may be mentioned that earlier in June, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in a letter to the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Harsh Vardhan had drawn his attention towards environmental clearance for Polavaram by the Ministry.

He had pointed out that the Odisha government was not informed on the ‘stop work order’ kept in abeyance by the ministry.