Bhubaneswar: Odisha has raked up the Polavaram issue once again and urged the Centre to ensure that the construction of the dam be stopped till the issues relating to the state were resolved.

"It is once again requested that the construction work of the Polavaram project should be stopped immediately till the issues pertaining to the state of Odisha are resolved," chief minister Naveen Patnaik, in a letter to Union environment, forests and climate change minister Harsh Vardhan, said.

Odisha has been opposing the project by Andhra Pradesh saying that the dam would submerge vast areas of the state. The matter is pending in Supreme Court.

The Odisha government has demanded that construction of the dam be stopped till the dispute was resolved.

However, construction continues on war-footing.

Naveen had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2015 and again in November 2017 to seek his intervention.

"In my previous letters to the Prime Minister, I have mentioned that if the project is completed before resolution of all the pending issues it will lead to a situation which will permanently affect a large number of tribal people in Odisha," the letter read.

The chief minister had argued in his earlier letters: "The construction of the Polavaram project is in violation of the Godavari Water Dispute Tribunal Award, and it is being constructed without correctly assessing the backwater extent in the Sabari and Sileru limits in the territory of Odisha."

He also argued: "The environmental clearance granted in the year 2005 is invalid as no public hearing was conducted in the Malkangiri district of Odisha, which will be severely affected due to construction of Polavaram project in its present formulation."

Naveen pointed out that Odisha's consent was never taken while changing the design parameters of the Polvaram project by the Andhra government and the Central Water Commission.

"I must mention that the state of Odisha is not being informed on the issue of 'Stop Work Order' of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change being kept in abeyance from to time, thus allowing the construction of Polavaram head works and distribution system uninterruptedly."