GUWAHATI, Nov 5 � The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) today alleged that capitulating to the browbeating Delhi leaders, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has now sided with the mega dam hydel power projects ignoring the interest of Assam�s people. The Chief Minister cannot muster courage to raise his voice upholding the cause of the State�s people, said the students� body.
Significantly, while the Chief Minister is lending his support to the mega-dam projects, the State chief of his party Bhubaneswar Kalita has opposed such projects and called for steps to abandon the projects.
Questioning the justification of the Chief Minister�s stand for another expert committee to study the dam projects, the students� body urged him to muster courage to raise the demand for keeping in abeyance the ongoing construction activities of the Lower Subansiri Hydroelectric Power Project and other such projects as per the recommendations of the eight-member expert group.
It has also wondered whether the observations made by the eight-member expert group were not acceptable for their not going by the diktats of the Government and the dam lobby.
Reiterating that the AASU is a pro-development organisation, the students' body said in its statement that as the mega-dam power projects have posed serious threats to the people of the State and their culture and civilization, it is compelled to demand for the revocation of the decisions to set them up.
Micro hydel power projects should be set up in place of the mega dam hydel power projects to meet the power demands of the people, it said.
It has also lashed out at the Chief Minister for his failure to mount pressure on the Central Government for translating the Prime Minister's announcement at the May 5, 2005 tripartite discussion on the implementation of the Assam Accord to treat Assam's flood and erosion as National Problems into a reality.
