Imphal, Aug 2 : The anti-dam groups in Manipur today accused the state government of keeping them in the dark about the Bangladeshi team’s visit to the Tipaimukh project site on a day inclement weather prevented the team from landing at the site.
The parliamentary team, comprising six MPs, three officials and an academic, was to visit the project site in Churachandpur district from Guwahati by chopper today to study the project and its possible impact on Bangladesh.
It hovered over the site at the tri-junction of Manipur, Mizoram and Assam because of bad weather.
The team will make another attempt to reach the dam site tomorrow.
“We went up to the area today but could not land because of bad weather,” the secretary-general of the Jatiya Party and member of the parliament A.B.M Rahul Amin Howlader said in Guwahati this evening. He is also a former minister.
The Citizens Concern for Dam and Development, comprising the anti-dam lobbyists in Manipur, have been planning to explain the details of the project to the team as villagers of Tipaimukh and adjoining Sipuikhon were preparing to hold demonstrations before the team.
Joseph Hmar, the anti-dam lobbyists’ leader, alleged the visit was kept under wraps.
“We have been running from pillar to post for the past few days to collect information about the timing of the visit. But no official obliged us. The government is keeping everybody in Manipur in the dark about the visit.”
Opposition parties and experts in Bangladesh too are opposed to the over Rs 8,000-crore project. According to them, once the 1,500MW project is complete on the Barak river, the dam could cause two of its rivers, the Surma and the Kushiara in northeastern Sylhet, to dry up.
“It will be another Farakka and cause desertification in eastern Bangladesh,” Badiul Alam Khokan, a leader of the Sylhet Division Development Action Council (SDDAC), said.
Hmar also alleged that the government neither told the people the exact nature of the project’s impact nor did it inform them about the team’s visit.
“We were planning to submit documents to the visiting team. But we do not know how to do this as we do not have any information” said Kinderson Pamei, coordinator of the Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights.