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NARMADA UPDATE
JUNE 16, 1994
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WATERS START TO RISE BEHIND DAM
RESETTLEMENT LAND CRISIS WORSENS
DOCUMENT SHOWS FORCIBLE EVICTIONS PLANNED
The monsoon broke over the Narmada catchment on June 13.
The river behind the Sardar Sarovar was rising at a rate of
15 cms per hour on June 15. The latest report from the dam
site put the water level at 62.5m above sea level.
Bhulabhai Motibhai, the man who lived in the first house
behind the dam continues his fight to be recognised as a
Project-Affected Person and so made eligible for replacement
land. Bhulabhai was arrested and evicted from his house last
year, hours before it was engulfed in the rising waters. He
has since been living with neighbours in Vadgam. The
government of Gujarat has failed to comply with a 1993 High
Court order saying that Bhulabhai and eight other Vadgam
families should be given house plots and that the District
Collector should negotiate their resettlement package with
them. Bhulubhai wrote to the Collector of Bharuch District
yesterday stating that if he did not receive a reply he
would prepare to be submerged by the rising waters in few
hours time. Other people in Vadgam wrote similar letters.
Maharashtra Resettlement Crisis
The NBA have obtained an official note written by the
Collector of Dhule District, Maharashtra, on June 5 which
says that 733 tribal families in the state will be affected
by submergence in this monsoon. The land and/or houses of
142 of the families will be permanently flooded. Of these
142 families, says the note, only 54 had been moved and 88
families remained, just days before the start of the
monsoon. Out of the 591 families whose land is likely to be
temporarily flooded, only 122 have moved. Despite repeated
claims from the authorities over the last few years that all
families in Manibeli have been resettled, the Dhule
Collector notes that 28 families in the village will be
affected by permanent submergence this year and 6 by
temporary flooding. Only 4 of the 28 families have moved.
Another confidential government note says that of the 733
families to be affected, 322 have accepted resettlement
land. As 176 families have moved, this means that the
government has been incapable of moving 146 families who
have accepted resettlement.
Eighty families from Dhankhedi, Maharashtra, immediately
upstream from Manibeli, have been trying to get resettlement
land for the past three years. Together with nine other
families they were finally moved in May, after being told
that land was ready for them at Simamli, Gujarat. However
only two of the 89 families have been given the documents to
their new land. Out of the remaining 87, only 28 have even
been shown plots of land and these plots are now at the
centre of an ownership dispute as the land is being used by
tribal people displaced by Ukai Dam in the 1970s. Apparently
the landowners who 'sold' their land to the government for
the Ukai oustees did not hand over their ownership documents
and have now sold their land a second time to the Narmada
Nigam. The remaining 59 families at Simamli have been told
not to expect to get any land this year.
The people at Simamli do not know how they will survive
without being able to grow food. They have already been
forced to start selling the house materials they brought
with them. Forty families have now returned to Dhankhedi.
Forcible Eviction in Gadher
Numerous families are being forcibly evicted. The NBA
have recently heard of the following incident in Gadher,
Gujarat. The family who lived in the largest house in the
village had for years been trying unsuccessfully to get
proper resettlement land. The family, like most of the
Gujarat oustees, had no involvement with the NBA. On June 4,
a party of officials and 'middlemen' (villagers paid by the
government to assist resettlement) accompanied by 50
labourers in 11 trucks arrived at the family's house. The
head of the household refused to move and was hit by some of
the middlemen. The terrified family ran away and the
labourers then demolished their house. Over the next two
days more trucks came and took away the house and its
contents. The family, who returned home on June 6, do not
know where their belonging have been taken. Some of their
animals have also disappeared.
Document Describes Eviction Plans
A confidential document dated 11 May written by a
Maharashtra resettlement official and leaked to the NBA
outlines a plan to forcibly evict the oustees in the state.
The document says that forcible evictions would start in
Manibeli on May 15 and gives targets for the number of
evictions to be carried out by May 28 and May 31. It
describes how many police and vehicles would be needed for
each village. Clearly a decision was taken at a high
political level to stall the eviction plans.
The document gives a figure of 3065 oustee families in
Maharashtra, 330 higher than publicly stated estimates.
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Compiled by Patrick McCully of International Rivers Network
with information from Himanshu Thakker of the NBA in Baroda,
Gujarat.
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