The previous Jaganmohan Reddy government has allegedly illegally awarded projects to Adani Power Companies for generating and storing electricity by lifting water from reservoirs in forest areas. Governments have formulated special policies for renewable electricity generation across the country and are awarding projects to the respective power companies with many subsidies.
As part of this, the Jagan government has also implemented a special policy in our state in 2022. According to this, the government has allocated 14 projects to various companies across the state in the financial year 2022-23 to generate and store 14,680 megawatts of electricity.
Four of these projects are in the tribal districts of Alluri Seetharamaraju and Parvathipuram Manyam. At a time when laws are being implemented in forest areas, so that non-tribal poor people cannot even build houses, there have been criticisms that the Jagan government has provided undue benefits to the elders by illegally awarding hydro projects to non-tribal organizations.
These pumped storage hydro power projects were sanctioned with 1,200 megawatts in Yerravaram, Koyyuru mandal in Alluri Seetharamaraju district, 1,000 megawatts in Pedakota, Ananthagiri mandal, 1,200 megawatts in Kurukutti, Salur mandal in Parvathipuram Manyam district, and 1,000 megawatts in Karrivalas, and the remaining three projects, except Pedakota, were awarded to Adani Power Company.
The Pedakota project was awarded to Shirdi Sai Electricals in Hyderabad. This belongs to Jagan’s relative. A total of more than 2,000 acres of land is required for these projects. Up to 25 percent of this is forest land, while the rest is patta land and government land.
Although there is a law to acquire land for public benefit, the laws do not allow it to be tied up with non-tribal organizations, and these allocations are being made, which is controversial. Apart from this, there are a large number of tribal communities and tribal settlements that are being displaced due to these projects.
Although there has already been strong opposition to these in the respective areas and movements have been going on, the Jagan government has acted as if it has not been granted.
According to the tribal area laws, there is no possibility of transferring lands in tribal areas in any form to anyone except tribals and cooperative societies of which tribals are members. But the Jagan government has trampled on these laws.
Especially in tribal areas, any kind of project needs to be undertaken with the resolutions of the respective Gram Sabhas and the approval of the State Tribal Advisory Council. But these projects were sanctioned without any of these.