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Watered down truths The rehabilitation process of families displaced by the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam is a sham. The local people are now trapped as the Narmada overflows Compensating people for what is taken from them in 'public interest' - as if their welfare is not part of public interest - is the duty of the government in power. S.G. Vombatkere T HE WATERS have crossed flood level and risen to almost 128 m in the Narmada valley. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is overflowing. Yet, no TV camera captures the trauma here. Newspapers report the rising water levels in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, but there's no coverage of the people marooned in the Narmada valley. In what can only be termed as a poor joke, apparently the state government had asked the local populace to evacuate the villages, fearing floods. But the people have not moved. Now, the official machinery can shrug off its reponsibility with a tardy 'we-told-you-so'. But why did these unfortunate people not leave before the rains started? There are two reasons. One, they have nowhere to go since they have not been given any land in compensation. The government has flouted the Supreme Court 's direction of a land-forland formula. Two, the villagers know that if they were to leave their villages and hutments now, they could never come back to claim any form of compensation. Successive governments have repeatedly failed to keep their promises of adequate compensation. It is a matter of shame that people are trapped by the rising waters of the Narmada, and it is not in the news. How do I know? Because in some areas of the Narmada valley, there are people moving about in boats, carrying news of their marooned communities and seeking help - in the form of medicine, clothes, blankets, food or money. They need help which the government should be extending as a matter of duty. But the government had asked the people to move out before the rains. As part of the Sardar Sarovar Project, entire villages were to be submerged with each elevation in the height of the dam. Accordingly, the Supreme Court ruled that people should be rehabilitated before each stage of raising of the dam. Compensating people for what is taken from them in 'public interest ' - as if their welfare is not part of public interest - is the duty of the government in power. This obvious task has either not been done at all or has been done inadequately. This is why the Supreme Court has had to intervene - not suo moto - but after continued agitation by project-affected families over many years. It has directed elected governments to complete rehabilitation before raising the height of the dam at each stage. (In the early stages, inaccurate surveys of the proposed submergence area omitted villages that would be submerged while including some that would not be. This was not immediately apparent and came to notice only when water began to be impounded. This, of course, seriously complicated the process of rehabilitation). The Supreme Court also directed that the land for rehabilitation be identified 12 months prior to the commencement of work at each stage of water level-raising, and the families be relocated six months before that. The Supreme Court wisely ruled that since most of the affected families knew no occupation other than farming, they should be compensated on a 'land-for-land' formula and be granted land of equivalent quality. Many of the affected were tribal families and forest dwellers, and thus not eligible as they possessed no land. They held no formal title to the land that they were to lose, while the landless farmers being dislocated did not own any land anyway. Such people were out of the loop. But even from those who were eligible for compensation in the form of land, complaints were many due to inaccurate demographic surveys by the state governments - inspired by corruption. The surveys did not account for compensation to adult sons of the affected families. So a large chunk of the acutely affected was out of the loop from the very beginning. For the rest, the complaints read like a litany of errors - compensation was not given at all in some cases; in other cases, adequate compensation was denied; many had to accept only part compensation. Corrupt officials demanded hefty cuts and commissions to release the documents for compensation. There have been cases where the same land has been allotted to more than one affected family or the land proposed for compensation has been unfit for farming. These are apart from the anguish created as communities are broken up and ties are untied as the displaced are accommodated any which way. When the displaced agitated at Mumbai and Bhopal, they were given assurances, which never materialised. These governments played with the agitators much like a cat plays with a mouse. The complaints kept growing. It was clear that for poor people, located days ' travel away from towns, approaching the courts to agitate against the government's ineptitude and corruption was well nigh impossible. This spurred the Supreme Court to direct the formation of a Grievance Redressal Authority (GRA) in each state that would facilitate compensation to affected families. If the lower courts and governments had done their basic duty, there would have been no need for the Supreme Court to constitute the GRAs. When the dam height was to be raised from 110 m to 122 m, there was serious objection from 35,000 affected families. They had received no compensation at all. That was not surprising as many of the people affected at earlier stages of construction were yet to be compensated. Rehabilitation was lagging behind construction work and was not being ensured before commence ment of work, flouting Supreme Court directions. These people agitated peacefully in Delhi to demand their dues, and camped outside the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR). Detractors who claim that the agitation was politicised need only answer one question: why would people travel from distant Narmada valley to Delhi, at what is for them a huge expense, if the government and the GRAs were doing their duty? But the Centre was not even willing to listen to their complaints. Worse, the police were called in to forcibly drive them away. After knocking in vain on the doors of the MoWR for weeks, three leaders of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) undertook an indefinite protest fast to get some attention from the government. One of the leaders, Medha Patkar, was arrested by the police and charged with attempted suicide. Mahatma Gandhi was, by this yardstick, a criminal who attempted suicide repeatedly. Attention came belatedly after 17 days of fasting when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ordered a group of ministers (GoM) to visit the Narmada valley in order to ascertain the veracity of the affected families' grievances. The GoM visited the construction sites of the dam and the surrounding areas. It reported that the rehabilitation work was mostly on paper and there had been little activity on ground. The present ground situation in the Narmada valley is at its dismal worst. S.G. Vombatkere is a retired Major General and was Additional DG (Discipline and Vigilance) in Army HQ, New Delhi URL : http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=10_10_2006_011_005 &typ=0&pub=264 |
| Also see : Rainwater Harvesting, Water |
