The Andhra Pradesh High Court stayed (on March 8, 2021) the demolition of houses in villages falling in the way of the Indira Sagar Polavaram Irrigation project, popularly called the Polavaram multi-purpose project, in East and West Godavari districts of the state.
“The implementation of LARR and settling of claims under the Forest Rights Act has been ignored. They are forcing people out of their houses and demolishing them in front of their eyes.” Forest dwellers, under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) [FRA] Act, 2006, cannot be displaced unless their rights have been settled under the law. The petitioner (Andhra Pradesh-based environmental justice non-profit Search for Action and Knowledge of Tribal Initiative (Sakti)), however, told the court that 520 individual claims covering an extent of 2,773.02 acres were pending at sub-divisional level committee in Chintoor and VR Puram blocks.
A 2015 High Court order had stated that until the provisions for rehabilitation under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR) were implemented, the fixation of gates of the dam could not take place.
https://www.newsclick.in/are-polavaram-affected-tribal-communities-short-changed-govt-their-land
March 16, the Andhra Pradesh High Court issued a notice upon the state government to clarify within eight days if project-affected families are actually being provided with decent rehabilitation and resettlement facilities before being evicted from their habitations.
.. PIL lists a plethora of violations in the execution of the Polavaram project. It has been alleged that several families are being denied rehabilitation and resettlement despite their dwellings falling within a surface distance of 100 metres from the full reservoir level of the Polavaram project in contravention to an Andhra Pradesh government order issued in April 2005. Even though eviction has started in habitations, the government is yet to finalise several claims made by tribal communities over forest rights in areas that will ultimately be submerged underneath the reservoir.
“Even though rights of tribal communities are being violated when it comes to acquiring their land, the government has failed to rein in unscrupulous non-tribal people who are acquiring compensations through illegal means. I