THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Not a tree has been uprooted or a brick laid for the 163-MW Athirappilly Hydel project, but KSEB has kept open an office of the executive engineer on the banks of Kannankuzhi pond, near the proposed project site in Thrissur district, for nearly 20 years. The office was opened in 1998 and employs 12 people, from the executive engineer to the driver; the executive engineer drawing a salary of Rs 1.52 lakh a month and the driver taking home Rs 89,339 a month. A cash-starved KSEB, in short, shells out Rs 14 lakh a month to prop up an office opened just to demonstrate the determination of the public utility to go ahead with a big hydel project.
“At a time when KSEB is pleading for tariff hike on the grounds of poor finances, it is intriguing that it is doling out huge salaries to employees for virtually nothing,” said Mr N.S. Alexander, who got the information through an RTI query. Mr Alexander is a former deputy drugs controller. With the validity of the environmental clearance expiring on July 18 this year, it is almost certain that the project will be shelved. Interestingly, KSEB has an office just eight kilometres upstream in Poringalkuthu where there is a power house.
(The dam for the Athirappilly project is proposed to be constructed 3 kms downstream from the point where the tail race from Poringalkuthu power house joins with Chalakkudy river.) “If at all KSEB has to perform some functions at the proposed site, these could have been done even if officers are based in Poringalkuthu,” said Dr Latha Anantha of Chalakkudy Puzha Samrakshana Samithi. “The only functions of those posted at the office in Kannankuzhi are to chaperone VIPs visiting the project site,” Dr Latha said. Three all-terrain vehicles have been allotted to the Athirappilly executive engineer’s office.
“Closing the office might perhaps hurt the pride of KSEB,” she added. Though the LDF government had aggressively pushed for the project right when it took over, stiff opposition from environmental groups and also from CPI has forced it to go silent on the issue. When the then power minister Kadakampally Surendran announced plans to augment the State’s installed hydel capacity by 300 MW in three years, there was no mention of the Athirappilly project.
