An article written by Ravi Kuchimanchi, Aravinda Pillalamarri and Kirankumar Vissa regarding the Narmada issue appeared in the Hindu on July 28, 2006 . The full-text of the article is reproduced below. 

Special Correspondent

"More than 4,000 families left out by panel"

NEW DELHI: Association for India's Development (AID), a non-governmental organisation, has described as "totally dishonest in its analysis and insensitive to the plight of the displaced people" the report of the Sardar Sarovar Project Relief and Rehabilitation Oversight Group.

The oversight group (OSG) report suggests that only 14,947 families are in need of rehabilitation and for whom rehabilitation sites are being developed, omitting more than 4,000 families without any explanation, the AID says in a critique released here on Thursday. Of the 14,947 families, it says that 14,391 have been allotted house plots, of which only 1,451 have actually constructed houses, and 757 families have shifted.

The oversight group consisting of V.K. Shunglu (Chairman), G.K. Chadda and Jayaprakash Narayan was entrusted with the responsibility of ascertaining the status of the rehabilitation of Sardar Sarovar dam affected people, and recommending processes to ensure that all affected families receive the relief and rehabilitation package.

Discrepancy

The OSG fails to note the enormity of the discrepancy, where only 6,620 (46 per cent of 14,391) suitable sites have been allotted while there are 18,965 affected families. Thus the vast majority of the affected families are still living in the submergence zone.

This is in violation of the Narmada Tribunal Award and the Supreme Court Orders, the NGO points out in its report.

Additional claimants

In addition to the 18,965 families, already recognised by Madhya Pradesh, the National Sample Survey Organisation received claims from 6,485 families that they have not yet been recognised as project-affected.

The report says that the OSG provides the list of 22 villages where it claims that there was population increase.

Of these, six villages actually have population decrease from 1991 to 2001. Thus even in villages where population has decreased, there are additional claimants and therefore the population increase argument, based on census data, is spurious and cannot be used to penalise households who have not yet been recognised as project-affected. OSG names 23 villages whose population it claims the census has recorded as zero in either 1991 or in 2001.

Actually, neither the 1991 nor 2001 census records the population of these 23 villages to be zero.

It is just that the data of the villages is not available to the OSG. Considering that the Narmada Tribunal Award required the government to offer cultivable land with irrigation facilities, the OSG should have concluded that the land was not given in a fair and transparent manner.

Instead, it claims that the oustees were accepting cash compensation through the Special Rehabilitation Package (SRP).

If the choice of cultivable land was not open to them, then it cannot be concluded that the oustees voluntarily refused land and preferred cash, the NGO points out. While this analysis clearly points out that the SRP has not been successful for a majority of those who opted for it, the OSG has no solutions or recommendations to offer except observing that SRP has picked up significantly.

Though the OSG concludes that there are 34,000 families yet to be rehabilitated in Madhya Pradesh, these numbers are much larger because several thousand families have not yet been recognised as project-affected, and the OSG also does not identify the numbers of major sons who need to be included.

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