Narmada valley children to invite President

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 17. Several hundred children whose habitations face submergence along with their families in the Narmada valley will come to Delhi on August 21 to meet the President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan, and state their plight before him. Their rally, `jeevan yatra', was flagged off today by social activist, Ms. Sadhna Amte, wife of Baba Amte, at Kasravad village on the banks of Narmada.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) which has questioned the costs and benefits of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat, runs 11 schools called `jeevan shalas' for tribal children, which are now threatened to be submerged after the height of the dam was raised to 93 metres (including the 3 metres hump) and `jeevan shalas' are schools set up with local expertise and innovative syllabus.

The school children will travel from satyagraha venues to Delhi proclaiming their right to childhood, education and life itself. They will invite the President to visit the valley and see for himself the situation arising from the dam. They will present him a children's manifesto together with a `basket of life' containing symbolic representation of all that the valley holds dear and may lose forever.

Travelling via Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh) and Mathura (Uttar Pradesh), the yatra will reach Delhi on August 21 and return to the valley on August 29 via Jaipur and Udaipur (Rajasthan).

The decision to raise the dam height from 85 to 93 metres after the Supreme Court order, has put at least 5,000 families, 11 `jeevan shalas' and the entire tribal belt in the valley in danger of submergence without provision for rehabilitation in this monsoon. About 40,000 families face submergence on account of the dam.

Flood threat

By Our Special Correspondent

GANDHINAGAR, AUG. 17. The people in the low-lying areas in the Broach and Narmada districts of Gujarat have been asked to move to safer places in view of the rise in the level of the Narmada following heavy rainfall in its catchment areas.

According to reports reaching here, the level of the river at the Golden Bridge point near Broach stood at 18.75 feet in the evening and is likely to cross the danger-mark of 22 feet by tomorrow morning.

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