The people in the Chalakudy river basin are still retaining their stance taken three years ago at the February 2002 public hearing against the proposed Athirappilly Hydro Electric project conducted by KSEB as per High Court orders. They are not ready for any more compromises.

Procedurally a Public Hearing organized by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board should have followed the WAPCOS EIA. But this has not happened so far. This is a clear violation of the EIA guidelines set by the MoEF.

Neither the Athirappilly Grama Panchayath in which the project is proposed nor the Vazhachal and Pokalapara ‘Kadar’ tribal settlements who face displacement have been informed or involved in the WAPCOS EIA process. Even the downstream grama panchayaths are unaware of the new EIA that was carried out. 

There are a number of factual mistakes and false information in the WAPCOS EIA as revealed at the evidences given at the people’s public hearing. (The 56 families of the Vazhachal tribal settlement are just 400 m downstream of the dam site as proved from the statement made by the tribal living in the settlement. They have not been even indicated anywhere in the EIA.) 

The people and local body representatives living downstream are deeply concerned about the impact of the project on the 14,000 ha ayacut Chalakudy River Diversion Scheme (CRDS) downstream of the project site. The CRDS is already operating at low efficiency due to insufficient stream flow in the river. Further regulation in river flow would lead to severe crop loss and drinking water shortage in the ayacut areas.

The downstream people and local body representatives are also concerned about the impact of the project on the existing drinking water and lift irrigation schemes that are entirely dependent on the river. Reduction and regulation in river flow downstream would severely affect the operation of these schemes.

The impact of the dam and reservoir on the livelihoods of the tribals, on the river fishing communities, on the tourism potential of the area, the riparian ecology, the elephant corridor, and the fish diversity and hornbill distribution are severely underestimated in the WAPCOS EIA.

At present there is scope for generating 17,000 MU (Million Units) of power per annum in Kerala against the requirement of 13,000 MU. Reduction of atleast 10% in the present T& D loss of 3360 MU itself would be more than the power to be generated from proposed Athirappilly HEP (233 MU). The claim of KSEB that this power is for the peak load demand also does not stand since the duration of power generation in summer months would be less than two hours (as per the water availability). So for the balance four hours of peak load, KSEB would have to depend on the existing thermal units. Moreover the cost of power per unit from this project would be Rs. 6 per unit (much higher than the cost of thermal power).