The Hindu : Monsoon spells disaster for families living along the Narmada

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 07, 2003

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Monsoon spells disaster for families living along the Narmada

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI AUG. 6. A good monsoon has spelt disaster for thousands of families living along the Narmada. Keersingh Padvi from Maharashtra's Nandurbar district says that by the end of July, water levels in many villages that lie within the submergence zone of the Sardar Sarovar Project had already crossed 108 metres.As a result, even a village such as Nimgavhan, located at a higher altitude than other villages, has been completely submerged. Last year, the water had touched this height towards the end of the monsoon in September.

This is the ninth year in a row that thousands of villagers in Maharashtra have lost their homes and their fields under the rising waters of the Narmada.

Keersingh holds both the Maharashtra Government and the local district administration responsible for this state of affairs.He says that only a day before the waters rose and submerged these villages, the district administration had asked the people to vacate their homes. But this year, people have decided not to move as they have no faith that they will be resettled.Also, he says, despite a specific assurance from the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, given to Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, that Maharashtra would not consent to further raising of the dam height until all those already affected were resettled, the opposite has happened.Both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have given their consent to the height of the dam being raised further. Yet, in Maharashtra, according to the NBA, families who would lose their lands with the dam standing at 80 metres have not yet been resettled.

On August 3, the office of the Collector of Nandurbar district, Sanjay Khandare, was stormed by hundreds of affected people, mostly adivasis.

They were protesting the arrest of activists in Chimalkhedi village who had refused to move as the village was submerged.Keersingh said that the affected families were still waiting to see if the Government would fulfil some of its promises.

The Collector, for instance, had given them a verbal assurance that he would put up a proposal for compensation to be paid within two weeks to those families whose homes and fields had been submerged in the recent floods.

But if no steps were taken before the water in the river rose again, as it is likely to do before the end of the monsoon, they would take other steps to register their protest in the absence of rehabilitation.

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