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DAM-L relocation due to flooded homes - story by Dilip deSouza
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subject: LS: The Bulb Brought The Tears
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Here's an incredible story on the Narmada Satyagraha.
--------------------------
The Bulb Brought The Tears
--------------------------
By Dilip D'Souza
printed in Rediff News, Sept 1, 2000
The old woman scrambles down the gentle slope as our boat gets ready to
leave. She waves to a young man who is with us. He waves back with a shy
grin. Then, as the boat begins moving, we notice that she is weeping. Tears
running down her cheeks, she continues to wave as we move off down the
river.
Her name is Khatri Vasave. She lives in a tiny village called Domkhedi, on
the banks of the Narmada river in northern Maharashtra. The young man's
name is Anil Kumar. He is from Pathanpara in Kannur District, Kerala. After
a few weeks here, he is returning to his home. In those weeks, Khatri has
grown very fond of this tall engineer from Kerala. And that fondness has
its roots, I suspect, in a single bulb.
For here's what Anil and his colleague Madhu accomplished in this hamlet.
They got here on July 15. They surveyed the area and found a small stream
gurgling through the hills a few hundred yards from the village. Enlisting
the help of the villagers, they built a 1 metre high, 4 or 5 metre long dam
across the stream. From the resultant reservoir, they laid a pipe through
trees and across slopes, to a concrete tank halfway to the village. From
that tank, they ran another pipe steeply downhill about 30 metres, to a
little shed they built at the bottom. In the shed, they set up a small
turbine they had brought from Kerala, and fed the pipe into it. Finally,
they strung wires from the turbine to some huts in Domkhedi.
A turn of the valve one recent Tuesday, and there it was. On India's 53rd
birthday, for the first time ever, an electric bulb glowed in Khatri
Vasave's hut. As also in a few other huts. In a mere one month spent here,
Anil and Madhu had given these villagers what 53 years -- 636 months -- of
Indian governments had not.
Electricity. No wonder Khatri weeps to see Anil leave.
Domkhedi is scheduled to vanish under the waters of the Narmada, as they
rise behind the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat. In fact, even at the dam's
present height, at the peak of the rainy season Domkhedi already does get
almost totally submerged. Its villagers are being drowned out of their
homes and off their land to build a dam that will apparently supply
drinking water and electricity to areas of Gujarat very far from here.
I imagine the irony must have occured to them at some point: nobody ever
cared to bring Domkhedi's residents drinking water and electricity. And yet
their lives here are the price they must pay so others in Gujarat can enjoy
those things.
No wonder, too, that the people of Domkhedi simply do not want Sardar
Sarovar built. Last year, hundreds of people from here and around made that
point by standing in the water as it rose: past their waists, chests and to
their chins, flooding their homes. For hours and days they stood, until a
nervous state administration pulled them out and arrested them.
This year, Domkhedi remains a focal point of the protests against the dam.
Except that this year, there's a small difference. The huts here actually
have electricity: just as good, just as potent, just as desirable as that
dam claims it will provide some indeterminate number of years from now. But
this is electricity produced right here in the village. Generated with the
toil and sweat of these very villagers. In some ways, this year's is the
loudest protest of all: this demonstration that even if they have been
deprived of electricity, even if there is no chance they will get it any
time soon, even if their lives are devastated so that someone else can get
the stuff -- even so, they are willing and able to produce it for
themselves. And at a cost of about Rs 15,000, with help from Anil and
Madhu, that's just what they have done.
Of course, it's important to retain some perspective here. While six huts
in Domkhedi are grateful for this power, on the face of it the idea does
not seem practical on a larger scale. The turbine that's up and running in
the village can supply 300 watts of electricity at best. That means perhaps
ten houses lit with low-power bulbs. (Though the families use compact
fluorescent lamps -- CFLs -- which consume the same power but produce more
light than ordinary incandescent bulbs). For the time being, the
electricity flows for just three or four hours every evening. Without
doubt, this is a small effort; a "micro-hydel" project that Anil himself
told us is better described as "pico-hydel".
Besides, there's the whole issue of what happens outside hilly areas such
as Domkhedi. The turbine needs steadily flowing water, which is why they
have built a tank and pipe the water 30 metres downhill here. That's not
possible in the plains.
So with all that perspective to consider after listening to Anil, we trek
up a narrow path, balancing precariously on the steep side of a hill, to
the dam site. The first thing that strikes me is how tiny the stream is.
Yes, there have been two poor monsoons in a row, no rain for days now. But
even so, this is a mere trickle of water. I can hardly believe there's
enough flowing in it to fill a bottle of water quickly, let alone light a
bulb, let alone more.
But then something else strikes me: that's just the point, isn't it? I
might have given this trickle no more than a glance. But two young men from
Kerala saw its potential and persuaded these villagers of it. Here in
Domkhedi, a few ordinary Indians have made creative use of their own
resources. Scanty resources, sure, but they have been exploited right here,
by those who live right here. And isn't that what self-reliance is all
about?
If you look at it like that, you know that it is no mere toy that's on
display in Domkhedi. Anil, Madhu and the villagers take it very seriously
indeed, and then the larger scale is hardly the point. Anil said they have
installed other turbines like this one in different Kerala villages. One
supplies as much as 4000 watts (4 KW). He believes the total micro-hydel
capacity in Kerala is 2000 megawatts. Compare that to the installed
electricity capacity in Kerala -- about 2800 MW -- and you start
understanding the potential. Anil wants to make a study in this part of the
Narmada Valley to estimate the capacity here. And China, Anil and
Madhu tell me, has about 10,000 such micro-hydel plants in operation. They
even supply power to the national grid there.
Not a toy. Besides, it also gives Domkhedi drinking water. The women here
used to have to clamber up and down the hills every day to bring water to
their families; in the monsoons especially, the water from the Narmada
itself is very muddy. But now a pipe brings clear stream water from that
tank right into the village. In addition, the Kerala engineers are building
bunds to prevent soil erosion in the stream's watershed. The idea is to
give the water more time to trickle into the ground and recharge the
groundwater. In one or two years, they expect that the recharging will
allow the stream to flow perennially, making the micro-hydel project more
useful still.
And if all that's not enough, there is even a pedal-operated generator,
designed by a student at IIT, operating in Domkhedi. Pedalled for an hour,
it charges a battery enough to power a couple of bulbs for four hours.
No doubt what's going on in Domkhedi is small. But it is at least a
demonstration of what is possible. Of what the alternatives are to major
projects that cause such a lot of destruction and displacement. What the
alternatives are to waiting for apathetic Governments to act, to provide.
And it seems to me -- I believe it was on this trip to the Narmada Valley
that I fully understood -- that this is what those who have fought this dam
so long have been saying all these years.
Let us decide, they are saying. Let us have a say. Let us make our lives,
our futures. Don't take that away. No wonder Khatri Vasave is crying.
---
Please use dilip@alumni.brown.edu to send me email. The old poboxes.com
address has been increasingly unreliable so we are trying to switch.
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