The Hindu Business Line : ‘GVMC under pressure to give water to Jindals’

Visakhapatnam, July 9 Enormous pressure is being exerted on the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation to retract its decision to deny water (8 mgd) to the proposed Jindal alumina refinery in Vizianagaram district and all such attempts by the ruling Congress party will meet with stiff resistance, according to leaders of different Opposition parties.

At a press meet here on Monday, the members of the all-party committee to oppose bauxite mining in Visakhapatnam district and the Jindal alumina refinery in Vizianagaram district said the GVMC at a general body meeting earlier this month had taken the right decision, bowing to pressure from the Opposition, to deny water to the Jindal project, “but now the State Government is resorting to all sorts of stratagems to find a way out of the mess and provide water to the project by hook or by crook.”

Mr G. Srinivasa Rao, the Telugu Desam leader heading the committee, said though the Congress had the majority in the GVMC, the Opposition persuaded the Mayor, Mr P. Janardhana Rao, to accept a resolution denying water to the project.

“But now, in spite of the public outcry against the project, the State Government seems bent on going ahead with it. Attempts are being made to find some formula to provide water to the Jindals and to pressurise the GVMC council to accept the formula. We are determined to fight all such attempts,” he said.

Mr J. Satyanarayana of the CPI and Mr Pridhviraj of the BJP said it was highly regrettable that the Congress party had not learnt the lesson and was going ahead with the project “in a most undemocratic manner, allotting more than a thousand acres of land in Vizianagaram district to Jindals and resorting to all sorts of ploys to provide water to them.”

The struggle committee leaders said the agitation against the project would be intensified. A demonstration would be held on Tuesday in Vizianagaram district and later this month a seminar would be held at Chintapalli in the agency (tribal) area of Visakhapatnam district.

A poster was released on the occasion, depicting how bauxite mining in the eastern ghats would prove ruinous to the hill streams, rivers and rivulets and adversely affect the livelihood of Girijans in the hills and people in the plains.

Mr R. Ravi, Executive Director of Samata, an NGO campaigning against the project, spoke of the hazards of bauxite mining.

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