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dam-l LS: States to re-examine Narmada rehabilitation



                                [THE HINDU]

                        Tuesday, February 16, 1999
                             SECTION: National


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            States to re-examine Narmada rehabilitation

            Date: 16-02-1999 :: Pg: 12 :: Col: e

            By Our Special Correspondent

            NEW DELHI, Feb. 15.

            For the first time since the Sardar Sarovar Project on Narmada
            has been conceived, the riparian States of Gujarat,
            Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have admitted - in their own
            way - that rehabilitation of the oustees had been faulty or
            not done. As per the Narmada Tribunal award, rehabilitation
            and resettlement should have been pari passu with construction
 Books      of the dam, but the project had been pushed ahead for emotive
            reasons.
 [Logo]
 Easy way   The M.P. Chief Minister, Mr. Digvijay Singh, has recently said
 to start   again that it was not possible to rehabilitate the thousands
 an         of tribals who would be displaced by various dams on Narmada
 Industry   in the State. He has demanded setting up of another tribunal
            to study the cost-benefit impact of Sardar Sarovar project in
            view of the reduction in flows. Recently, Mr S.C. Shukla, who
            was in charge of the State when the project was being
            conceived had conceded that the height of the SSP dam be
            restricted to limit the number of displacements.

            The Maharashtra Government has also recently passed a
            resolution appointing a Land Purchase Committee to purchase
            private land to rehabilitate oustees. In the resolution, it
            has admitted that some of the oustees from 1992 were either
            settled on already encroached land or not resettled at all.

            The Gujarat Government has also suo moto appointed a Grievance
            Redressal Committee within the State to take note of the
            oustees to be settled or already settled. Of the families
            settled in Gujarat, many had returned to their home State of
            Maharashtra for lack of facilities or hostile social environs.

            However, this is not to say that the State Governments which
            have been rather cavalier about rehabilitation in the past
            have turned a new leaf. It is likely that they have been
            pushed into taking action as the SSP project was locked in a
            legal battle with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, which has sought
            a complete review of the project, particularly about the cost-
            benefit analysis, claims of benefits, environmental concerns
            and state of rehabilitation and resettlement of oustees and
            alternatives.

            The fact remains that the Narmada dam project is one of the
            largest in the country and will involve displacement of a
            whole lot of people who may or may not be the beneficiaries of
            the project. More than 40,000 families are likely to be
            displaced by construction of 30 large dams, 135 medium dams
            and 3000 small projects. Of these, 33,000 families will be
            displaced in M.P. alone. The SSP will be the largest and the
            only dam in Gujarat. All the rest will be constructed in
            Madhya Pradesh, which has to cope with the largest ever
            displacement of people, mostly villagers and tribals.

            The SSP dam has so far been constructed till about 257 feet,
            when a court injunction was given on further construction in
            May, 1995. Politicians in Madhya Pradesh had again reiterated
            the demand to restrict the height of the dam to 436 feet so
            that displacement in the State is not so large. For this, the
            State is willing to let go of some of the power it would have
            got and claims that Gujarat will not stand to lose any of its
            water or power benefits.

            However, it appears that with the BJP-coalition in the saddle
            at the Centre and BJP ruling Gujarat and Maharashtra, an
            isolated Madhya Pradesh may not make much headway unless the
            Congress at the centre takes it up.

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