U.N. official calls for halt to Narmada dam work

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, AUG. 10. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing, appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Miloon Kothari, has called for immediate moratorium to any further increase in the height of the Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat in view of the violations of the rights of those displaced by the dam in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, Mr. Kothari said India's credibility in the international community was at stake as a number of its commitments to the international human rights instruments were being breached because of the continuing impasse over the status of the people affected by the SSP in the Narmada valley. More than 40,000 families are affected by this project.

Mr. Kothari, a U.N. Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, has based his observations on the findings of a fact-finding mission of his office which visited rehabilitation sites in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

He said the findings, based on eye-witness accounts, interviews with the affected people and data collected from civil society and governmental sources, concluded that the SSP settlement of the affected has been a comprehensive failure. The authorities at the local, State and the Central level had failed to demonstrate either the commitment, or the capacity, to carry out the resettlement in a manner consistent with the basic human rights of the affected people.

The displacement of the oustees of the SSP was forced evictions under international law and formed a clear violation of their right to adequate housing, he said.

He has called for setting up a committee led by the Prime Minister that will serve two functions: to investigate the status of resettlement in the Narmada Valley and to draft guidelines for monitoring compliance in the resettlement process with Constitutional provisions, the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal and India's international human rights commitments.

The guidelines could lead to human rights impact assessment of the project to determine its feasibility in the light of violations that have already taken place. This would ensure that the complete cost benefit review of the SSP that is called for, includes full consideration of the implications of continuing with this project on the human rights of those affected.

The main findings of the independent commission say that a large number of affected people are not considered as official Project Affected People and therefore are not eligible for alternative housing and land. It says that the PAPs that are recognised officially have not been provided suitable and adequate alternate housing including land, rendering them homeless.

The rehabilitation provided to the PAP violates minimum core obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultured Rights that are required to protect the right to adequate housing.

The Commission says that the standards of living of the tribals has fallen because they have lost the rich source of sustenance from the forest--such as minor forest produce, timber for building houses and fruits etc.-- available to them in their home village. It says that the project was announced in 1961. Since then all ``developmental work'' in the form of new construction and even repair or upgradation of old ones has stopped. In effect, a whole generation had grown up without their rights to housing, education and health.

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