GUWAHATI, July 7 – The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the Takam Mising Porin Kebang (TMPK) have announced a series of agitational programme in protest against the design to bring back the turbines of the 2000-MW Lower Subansiri Hydroelectric Power Project (LSHEP).
The student bodies said in a joint statement here today that they would go for satyagraha programmes in Guwahati on July 9 and at Tezpur on July 11 to register their protest against the design to bring back the Lower Subansiri HEP turbines.
Claiming that they are not anti-development, both the student bodies said that construction of such development projects, like the mega dams, that pose serious threat to the life and property and civilization of the people of the State, should be stopped once for all. Or else, the join struggle of the people of the AASU and the TMPK would continue, they threatened.
They also reminded the authorities concerned that the members of an expert committee, comprising experts from IIT, Guwahati, Gauhati University and Dibrugarh University, had stated in an unambiguous term that the LSHEP dam should not be constructed in the seismically sensitive areas of the Himalayan foothills.
The Assembly Committee of Assam also expressed the same view. But none of the State government and the Central government implemented the recommendations of the above expert committees. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has not been able so far to muster the courage for formulating his stand in favour of his own people on the issue, said the student bodies. Now, to satisfy the Delhi rulers, the State Government is trying to bring back the LSHEP turbines to the project site, alleged the student bodies.
AASU members today formed a human chain at Tezpur in protest against the design of the authorities to bring back the LSHEP turbines and also demanding abandonment of the LSHEP.
Members of the Sonitpur District Students’ Union, Tezpur local students’ union and other subdivisional and local units of the AASU's Sonitpur district unit took part in the programme.
Meanwhile, the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba-Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) has warned that an agitation would be launched to resist the re-entry of the LSHEP turbines in Assam. The AJYCP would be a partner of a joint resistance struggle for the purpose of preventing the re-entry of the turbines in Assam, said the Yuba-Chatra Parishad in a statement here today.
It has also made an appeal to the people of the State to unite against the mega hydroelectric power projects proposed to be set up in the NE region. These projects pose serious threat to the civilization of the people of Assam, it said.
