Arend Kolhoff
Technical secretary
The NCEA issued an advisory review of an EIA for the Andhra Pradesh Groundwater Borewell Irrigation Schemes (APWell) project. It found that several aspects were missing in the EIA report. The NCEA's advice was adopted and included in the inception report of the project.
Significant details
The project was approved by the Minister for Development Cooperation in July 1994; the five-month start-up phase (in which the action plan was drawn up) began on 1 April 1995 and the inception report was made available in September 1995. The EIS was reviewed after the project had been approved, and it was concluded that the project would not guarantee a sustainable supply of groundwater. In its advisory review, therefore, the Commission made recommendations for a more sustainable development paying more attention to measures aimed at increasing infiltration capacity and setting up user associations under a catchment management approach. The Commission presented its findings on the inception report in a letter dated 14 November 1995. The recommendations have been adopted almost completely and as a result a sustainable use of the groundwater should be guaranteed. The implementation phase of the project began in September 1995 but actual work of phase I started in 1997 and will end in March 2000. A second phase is in preparation.