Bharat Rakshak

Thousands of casual workers of Vedanta's alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Orissa's Kalahandi district, who were retrenched on Tuesday, have started leaving for their homes.

More than 4,000 labourers working on the expansion project of the refinery through L&T were on Tuesday asked to go. The retrenched workers started heading for their homes in distant places in the State and outside following the arrest of 35 of their co-workers on Tuesday night.

After the closure of three hydel projects, yet another major project has become the target of the ruling BJP’s politics in Uttarakhand.

The government has suspended the construction work of the 330-megawatt (Mw) Alaknanda hydel project at Srinagar, which is being built by infrastructure major GVK with an investment of Rs 2,769 crore.

Three major projects – 600 mw Loharinag Pala, 480 mw Pala Maneri and 381 mw Bhaironghati – had already been closed mainly on the demand of the state BJP government.

Keeping religious sentiments and environmental concerns in view, a Group of Ministers (GoM) on Friday scrapped the NTPC's controversial 600 MW Loharinag Pala hydel project on Bhagirathi river in Uttarakhand.

Headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the GoM in a meeting made a detailed re-examination of the project and recommended that the hydro-power dam, the work on which had been under suspension for sometime, should be scrapped.

Vasu wrote:BJP has formed the government in the state since its inception in 2000, so I highly doubt if there is any policy disruption within the state government, despite the massive infighting and rivalries. If anything, this episode perfectly epitomizes the theme of this thread - the severe lack of due diligence and the long, long time it takes in conflict management.

Protests have triggered after the suspension of GVK’s 330 Mw Alaknanda hydel project and closure of 600 Mw Loharinag Pala, 480 Mw Pala Maneri and 381 Mw Bhaironghati hydel projects on Bhagirathi river in Uttarkashi district.

In the Srinagar area where the government suspended Alaknanda hydel project, locals were up in arms against the decision. They were holding torch light processions and dharna during the past three days.

With Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank deciding to contest from Srinagar constituency in the next assembly elections, local Congress leaders also joined the issue to attack the BJP government.

A series of similar protests have also occurred various other areas of the hill state. The government has also come under scanner after it cancelled 56 small hydel projects in the wake of allegations of irregularities in the allotment process.

With the closure of these projects, Uttarakhand’s dreams of becoming an energy surplus state have virtually been dashed.

Top officials admitted that the government’s decision to shut down the projects has squeezed the investments in the hill state considerably. “When you are closing these projects, obviously it will send wrong signals outside the state,” said a top official of the

Significantly, no major hydel project is expected to be commissioned in the next two years in the state where the demand of power is increasing by 15 per cent every year.