'A small king, a small portfolio', was the popular reaction in 1985 when Digvijay Singh became irrigation minister of Madhya Pradesh (MP). For the next five years, the civil engineer-turned-politician advocated small dams in agriculture. "He was speaking the language of the villagers who traditionally irrigate their land through small dams," says Biren Tewari, a senior Congress leader.
Since then, he is known as a grassroots leader. "Being a civil engineer and a farmer, he understands the importance of land and water very well. He always thinks from the grassroots level," says Tiwari. The tennis-loving and soft-spoken
raja (king) of Raghogarh is known for his patronage to all initiatives at the grassroots level. When he became chief minister in 1993, he immediately called an all-party meeting on the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam and protested the project on technical and cost-benefit grounds.
His first major decision was to implement Panchayati Raj. That done, Singh began working on the agenda for the panchayat bodies; he implemented and developed better sanitation, education, land and water management projects in the name of Rajiv Gandhi Missions (RGM). People got sweeping powers in developmental activities. "It was very difficult breaking the conventional pattern of power flow," Singh conceded in an interview to
Down To Earth.
Yet, as our survey reveals, he is often accused of ignoring urban environmental problems. "He does not seem interested in checking pollution by industries. Rather, many of his friends are owners of these units," says Hariram Patidar, village leader from Ratlam, pointing to the H-acid contamination of groundwater near the industrial town. Similarly, leaders of victims of the Union Carbide disaster show scepticism. "With a Bhopal tragedy in our past, no chief minister can show as much insensitivity to industrial pollution as Digvijay Singh. He patronises all polluting industries," feels Satinath Sarangi, a trustee of Sambhavana Clinic that treats Bhopal gas disaster victims.
Also, his decentralisation agenda is strongly dismissed as "decentralisation of corruption". Local people often echo this sentiment while talking to the press. Since he took over as chief minister, some of his cabinet colleagues have been accused in corruption cases ranging from timber smuggling to swindling of money meant for panchayat bodies. He denied election tickets to five colleagues in the November 1998 assembly elections as they were facing allegations of corruption.
Despite all these charges and accusations, his attention towards the grassroots agenda is believed to be the reason for his victory in the last assembly elections, upsetting all poll predictions. His agenda, it seems, remains the same in the second term. After his swearing-in ceremony, he announced that he would go in for further decentralisation of power.
A small order? "I will be gainfully employed," Singh says, pointing out what he will achieve from it.
BASIS OF RATING:
Two-thirds of the environmentalists who replied felt that he has taken personal interest in sustainable development and promoted participation of NGOs and the poor in environmental management. The environmentalists have also cited the Rajiv Gandhi Mission for Watershed Development as a successful programme. They see a definite change for the better in the state's environment.
REVIEW OF WORK
Grassroots organisations are as important, if not more, than
the engineering structures in the watershed, writes Digvijay
Singh in the foreword to the Madhya Pradesh Human
Development Report, 1998. It echoes his style of governance.
A look at his various schemes - Rajiv Gandhi Missions,
Panchayati Raj and Joint Forest Management (JFM) - reveals
that there has been a conscious attempt to make people the
pivot of development. People have been made responsible for
their development and have been empowered to pursue it.
In the case of watershed management, watershed committees have been made representative by involving all villagers.
And these committees have unprecedented powers
to manage land and water resources through the watershed
mission. By this arrangement power has been decentralised
beyond the
panchyat level. These organisations would be
taking over the engineering structures after the mission
withdraws. The marriage between watershed activities and
it m is another innovative way of involving people closely with
ecological regeneration in the state.
He adopted a similar approach - decision making by the
community - for the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam as
well. While accepting the protest against the dam, he facilitated discussion among the protesting organisations, the affected people and government officials. The movement got a fillip with his formal demand for reducing the height of the dam.
He even propagated small dams as alternative to the big dams.
Watershed development
Realising the importance of natural resources for survival, the
Digvijay Singh government introduced the Rajiv Gandhi
Mission for Watershed Development (RGMWD) on August 20,
1994. Initially, it proposed to improve 1.2 million hectares
(ha) of degraded land within four years. The target was
revised in 1996 to more than 3.4 million ha of degraded
land. RGMWD is funded by the Union government's
Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) an Drought-Prone
Area Programme (DPAP).
At present, the mission has been implemented in 8,198
villages covering 5,714 micro-watersheds. Further, 30,344
self-help groups have been formed in watersheds across
the state. The mission's activities have also improved the
economy: in just three years, 14 million person-days of
employment has been created in the state.
Though the mission has been introduced in all 61 districts
of the state, Jhabua, a tribal district in the state, has met
with
the maximum success. The district was facing chronic drought
and 60 per cent of its land was degraded. With the initiation
of watershed management, it is not only getting back its
forest but the degraded lands have also been brought under
cultivation.
Seed banks under the RGMWD were set up to ensure
continuous supply of seeds to villagers in the watershed development areas. This has helped villagers avoid moneylenders,
who charge a high rate of interest on the loan. A villager gets a
loan of seeds from this bank on the condition that it is
returned with an interest in seeds only. All villagers are
members of the bank and also provide the premise for it. At
present, there are 314 such banks functioning in the state.
Joint Forest Management
IFM-cum-watershed management programme is a relatively
new concept. It was adopted in Jhabua even before the Union
ministry of rural development issued guidelines in 1995. It
began in 1994 with the formation of 20 village forest committees (VFCs). VFCs are responsible for protecting and maintaining forests with the help of the state forest department. The
number of VFCs had gone up to 4,376 by 1998. For greater
women's participation, 50 per cent of members in these
committees are women. Similarly there are 3,925 forest
protection committees (FPC) to guard densely-forested areas.
Though JFM was adopted in 1991, a resolution was issued
by the state government in 1995 to make it more participatory
and to have an integrated approach to watershed activities. It
is now termed as the Village Resource Development
Programme.
An intensive awareness programme was undertaken by
forest officials before introducing the scheme. "Initially
people used to look at us suspiciously. We told them that
forests were theirs, yet they were disappearing fast. We offered
them help in regenerating the forests," says A B Gupta, who
was the divisional forest officer of Jhabua. "Simultaneously, I
asked mv own staff to change their attitude towards villagers,"
he says.
Today, 60 per cent of Jhabua's total forest area is covered
under JFM and there are more villagers guarding forest
than forest guards: for every forest guard, there are two villagers protecting the forests, Altogether, there are 3,925 forest
protection committees under JFM.
"While JFM has protected the forest, watershed has given
back the land's fertility in the form of rising groundwater
levels," says Gupta. In November 1997, 22
gram panchayats
decided to hand over another 4,000 hectares of village land to
the programme and declared it forest area. With this success,
the government has set a target of covering 50 per cent of the
30,000 villages of the state situated in the periphery of forests
under JFM by 2000.
Narmada Valley project
"Digvijay Singh is very sensitive to the problem of rehabilitation and the environmental impact of big dams as proposed
under the Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP). His
practical and pro-community approach to this controversial
issue really helped us a lot," says Shreepad Dharmadhikari,
an activist of Narmada Bachao Andolon (NBA). Under the
NVDP, 30 major dams, 135 medium-sized and some 3,000
small dams are proposed and almost all of these would be
in Madhya Pradesh, except the Sardar Sarovar dam that is
coming up in Gujarat.
Though a large forest area would be submerged and a lot
of people would be displaced by these dams, the only benefit
from it would be electricity supply. No government in the
state protested against the project except the Digvijay Singh
government.
NBA wants the project scrapped, as there are several
problems associated with rehabilitation of the displaced and
the dam's adverse impact on the environment. In 1993, when
Singh came to power, he called an all-party meeting on the
issue. At the meeting, he acknowledged that the issue of
rehabilitation had not been worked out properly. He opposed
the project on "technical, economical and environmental
grounds."
He also lodged a formal protest with the Prime Minister,
asking for reduction in the height of the dam from the
proposed 139 metres to 117 metres. He even promised
to compensate Gujarat for the monetary loss due to reduction
in the height.
In his complaint, he explained the fault in the design of the
dam; it would not carry as much water as is expected. And
its submergence of more forest areas would disrupt the
cost-benefit balance. He stuck to this stand in the Supreme
Court in response to NBA's petition against the dam.
After the all-party meeting came the workshop on all
dams proposed under the NVDP. The workshop, attended
by NBA, government officials and the affected people in
December 1997, set up a task force in January 1998 to
review the dams proposed with a special reference to
the Maheswar dam. "These kind of steps suddenly changed
our approach and we became open to suggestions from
the government. Discussions really help you to sort out
problems," says a member of the above-mentioned task
force. He has reportedly accepted the recommendations
of the task force that suggested smaller dams in place of the
big ones.
In case of two other dams, Bargi and Tawa (already built),
Singh intervened by giving fishing rights in the reservoir,
which earlier used to go to contractors, to the rehabilitated
people.
In case of Bargi, he set up a committee in 1993
and accepted its recommendation of rehabilitating the
displaced by forming a cooperative to give it fishing rights.
The same rights were given to the villagers rehabilitated
by the Tawa dam.
