Narmada villagers await rehabilitation

      Hapeshwar (Gujarat): As the furore rages over the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam project on Narmada river in Gujarat with groups clashing over the right and wrong of development, the once flourishing village of Hapeshwar has been completely submerged in the waters of the Narmada, leaving behind its anguished and deprived residents. For the past several years, Hapeshwar's villagers have been doing the rounds of various state government offices in search of appropriate rehabilitation. The promised rosy rehabilitation package has been converted into a shanty atop one of the few hills left untouched by the water and a daily struggle to grow at least some crop on the largely uncultivable land. Hapeshwar is sandwiched between Gujarat and Maharashtra, making it easy for officials on both sides to shake off responsibility. "The authorities come and go...they do nothing. In Gujarat they say go to Maharashtra, there is no land left in Gujarat. When we go to Maharashtra, they say go back to Gujarat. Nothing happens, till date I have been given no land," said Jashubahi, one of the displaced villagers.

     Jashubhai says only a fraction of the village's 300 families were actually given rehabilitation. While some of the more enterprising ones moved to cities and towns to work as labourers or rickshaw pullers, most like Jashubhai, illiterate and ill equipped to handle any work other than farming, have been left in the lurch. The men say they have only managed to find an odd occupation or two as a farmhand in nearby villages but that is neither permanent nor enough to survive. "We keep sitting on this hill, doing nothing. We are facing difficulties, of course we are facing difficulties, it is getting impossible to run our homes," said Jasubhai. "All our land has been submerged, now we are trying to cultivate this little bit of high ground and trying to eke out a living somehow, Bhaganlal, another villager, added. Local authorities however retort the men were given lands but were too choosey about it.

     The Sardar Sarovar Dam was in the limelight last month after authorities began work to raise its height bringing the multi-billion dollar Narmada valley development project one step nearer completion. But the Narmada Bachao Andolan (known as the NBA, or the Save the Narmada Movement), India's most celebrated environmental campaign, bitterly opposed the move saying authorities have not yet rehabilitated millions already displaced. The NBA says if the dam's height is raised further, more than 35,000 families, most of them impoverished tribal farmers, could have their homes and fields submerged when the monsoon rains arrive in June and are still waiting to be resettled. The NBA also says in the state of Madhya Pradesh, where tens of thousands of families have already been displaced, not a single family has been given proper, arable land, and many have forced to accept inadequate cash compensation. The problem they say is widespread and thousands of small pockets are affected. The country's Supreme Court on Monday refused to halt work on the dam, being touted by its supporters as lifeline, it had rapped state authorities over the shoddy rehabilitation work.

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