Damned despair

-- THE latest figures of the oustees of the
Sardar Sarovar Project (ssp) show that
relief and rehabilitation (R&R) has
almost come to a standstill. In the last 14
months since June 1994, the Gujarat
government has been able
to resettle just 94 families
from all the three states of
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh
and Maharashtra. As
accompanying graphs
show, with each passing
year, ssp authorities' performance in the progress
of R&R is going down,
when theadditional number of families displaced
with each metre added to
the dam goes up.

According to reports
received, till October, the
project authorities have been able to
resettle hardly 20 per cent of the over
41,000 families to be affected by the
Sardar Sarovar Reservoir, and they plan
to complete the dams in another three
years. All this ]ends evidence to the contention of the opponents that resettlement is impossible.

The chief obstacle to the process of
resettlement (rehabilitation being a far
cry) is the mcm -availability of land in
Gujarat, where maximum resettlement
is planned. In a recent meeting, the R&R
sub-group of the Narmada Control
Authority - the interstate monitoring and
control agency - decided that in future, Gujarat
authorities should provide land in contiguous
chunks of 200 ha or more,
so that, more than 100
families can be resettled
in one place. This reflects
one ofthe basic principles
of community resettlement, According to this
decision, almost all the
present R&R sites in
Gujarat would be invalid.
This and the detailed land-based information inquired by the Madhya
Pradesh government is one of the stumbling blacks.

But opponents claim that the concerned governments do not have the
political will or sensitivity for proper
rehabilitation. Resignation of an mil
tant supporting NGO of Grijarat
Arch-Vahmi - from the
Rehabilitation Agency supports
contention. The work oil main spillportion of the dam has been stop
since January 1995 due to a halt in i
Since nine months, Gujarat has reset
just 29 families.