GOVERNMENT / THE NARMADA SAGA

Shunglu committee : familiar fait accompli

Thus the committee is not investigating the status of affected people who are not on the government's official lists. But one of the biggest problems with rehabilitation in the Narmada Valley is that thousands of people have been entirely left off the official PAF lists! Even as the committee is in the valley on its investigation, Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) officials are also there, resurveying and adding hundreds of more people to the lists daily. But none of these people will be shown in the committee's report. Gramsabhas have also conducted comprehensive sample surveys in four villages, which show many more people affected by submergence than are on the government's PAF lists. But the Shunglu Committee refuses to take all these into consideration.

Third, the way the surveyors are asking questions guarantee that they will miss much of what's happening in the Narmada Valley. The surveyors are only asking people yes or no questions, and thus not allowing villages to provide open-ended answers that would shed light on the real rehabilitation realities that people are facing. For example, in one village an interviewee reported that he had not received compensation for his soon-to-be submerged house. Instead of noting this, the surveyor asked him if he had received a houseplot. The interviewee responded that he had on paper, but had not received compensation for his house and thus could not build a new one, and that moreover there were no civic amenities like electricity at the site. But the surveyor simply recorded that the person had received a houseplot! In another example, surveyors refused to listen to villagers who were trying to tell them that their land would become tapu (surrounded by water) because they did not have a column for that on their survey. Without open eyes and ears, how is the committee supposed to understand the actual situation in the valley?

Reports from many villages also indicate grave and inappropriate behaviour by government surveyors, which severely call into question their "independence" and impartialness. While surveyors are not supposed to be accompanied by government patwaris, NVDA officials have been seen with almost every team. Clearly this is inappropriate influence by an agency that has a vested interest in continued dam construction. Meanwhile, villagers not being directly surveyed and the people's representative organisation (the NBA) are not allowed to talk to surveyors. Even more disturbing, surveyors have been propagandising and even making speeches to villagers about the dam project. Some surveyors have encouraged villages to accept the meager (and illegal) cash compensation that the government of Madhya Pradesh is offering instead of demanding the land they are legally entitled to. In another village, one of the surveyors (who happened to be from Gujarat) actually gave a speech to PAFs about how the dam was in the national interest and that they should make a sacrifice for it. Another told them that they should move to Gujarat. Is this an impartial survey or propaganda for illegal government policies? The Shunglu Committee appears not to be an independent investigation, but a stalling tactic, allowing dam construction to proceed before full rehabilitation is completed.

The patent absurdity of all this would make the situation comic if it weren't so tragic. When the monsoon waters back up behind the 122m dam wall, many thousands of people will be flooded from their homes. Small adivasi villages and densely populated towns of Nimad will be submerged, along with their shops, markets, and temples. Farmers will lose their fields and crops, and since the concerned governments do not recognise many of them as affected, they will be shoved off without compensation or alternative land to turn to for their livelihood. Those who are identified as affected will be dumped in tin sheds with no cultivable land if they are lucky (even these tin shed homes have yet to be constructed in many of the rehabilitation sites). Others who are not officially counted could wind up in the slums of the nearest cities, as happened to many evictees of the upstream Bargi Dam. How many this will happen to is hard to predict as it depends on the size of the monsoon rains. But it's a lot more people than all three state governments are recognising, and is certainly measured in lakhs.

What next?

Given the sheer number of oustees and the gaping holes in the governments' rehabilitation plans, it is impossible that this could be corrected before the August-September submergence, even if the governments were making an effort. The Group of Ministers team sent to the Narmada Valley by the Prime Minister reported that rehabilitation in Madhya Pradesh at the 122m dam height would take at least another year.

The government must take several steps immediately. First, the problems with the Shunglu committee's investigation must be acknowledged. Whatever the committee's conclusions, it is already clear that their survey will provide only a very partial and incomplete picture of the rehabilitation situation in the Narmada Valley. The committee's final report should take into consideration the information and critiques brought to light by the gramsabhas and the NBA. Two, with the impending monsoon rains, the government must act on war-footing to provide rehabilitation to those who will be displaced.

The glaring injustice and illegality of this must also serve as a lesson for next year, when the government will again try to push the dam height to 140 metres. But the law is clear. No further height increase should be allowed until it is shown that every family in the submergence area has received its full, legally-guaranteed rehabilitation. So far, the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister, and the three respective state governments have all failed to live up to their responsibility to enforce the law and protect the rights of people in the Narmada Valley.