what are the government assistance for Narmada Bachao andolan
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The struggle of Sardar Sarovar dam evictees and affected people has entered its most critical phase. Several people who face eviction are fasting and standing in water in a peaceful jal satyagraha to resist the eviction. Medha Patkar was on an indefinite fast to demand satisfactory rehabilitation for everyone evicted before she was removed from the protest site on Monday (August 7) by the police. Some people will recall previous such movements and say that this is a familiar scenario – but actually it is not.
With the increase in the dam height and the closure of the gate, the situation has become much more precarious for people who face displacement. This is why it is important for the authorities to very quickly reach an agreement on the basis of the basic principle of ‘satisfactory rehabilitation first, eviction and submergence later’.
This principle has been followed in almost all the agreements and written directions given at the early stages of the Sardar Sarovar Project, so all that the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) is really asking the government is to follow its own written commitments. However, the government has often stated that it has more or less completed its rehabilitation obligations. While this is not entirely true even in Maharashtra and Gujarat, where the scale of displacement is much less than Madhya Pradesh, it is in Madhya Pradesh that the gap between the previous agreements and the actual rehabilitation is unacceptably high.
It is understandable then that the focus of the struggle is now most visible in Madhya Pradesh, where the government has gone back on its promise of providing land to evictees. Later, even the cash-based rehabilitation with all its inadequacies was marred by massive corruption as exposed in the Jha Commission report as well as other official reports, not to mention the extensive media coverage of the same.
As a result, most of the people facing eviction are not in a position to arrange for proper rehabilitation on the basis of whatever meagre compensatory payments they have received so far. The basic question is, given the fact that the most important initial agreement of providing land to displaced people was openly flouted by the Madhya Pradesh agreement and that very large-scale, officially-documented irregularities took place in the distribution of cash compensation and other rehabilitation work, are most of the people threatened with displacement in a position to start a new life at a new place which will be comparable to the life they had been leading before displacement?
With the increase in the dam height and the closure of the gate, the situation has become much more precarious for people who face displacement. This is why it is important for the authorities to very quickly reach an agreement on the basis of the basic principle of ‘satisfactory rehabilitation first, eviction and submergence later’.
This principle has been followed in almost all the agreements and written directions given at the early stages of the Sardar Sarovar Project, so all that the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) is really asking the government is to follow its own written commitments. However, the government has often stated that it has more or less completed its rehabilitation obligations. While this is not entirely true even in Maharashtra and Gujarat, where the scale of displacement is much less than Madhya Pradesh, it is in Madhya Pradesh that the gap between the previous agreements and the actual rehabilitation is unacceptably high.
It is understandable then that the focus of the struggle is now most visible in Madhya Pradesh, where the government has gone back on its promise of providing land to evictees. Later, even the cash-based rehabilitation with all its inadequacies was marred by massive corruption as exposed in the Jha Commission report as well as other official reports, not to mention the extensive media coverage of the same.
As a result, most of the people facing eviction are not in a position to arrange for proper rehabilitation on the basis of whatever meagre compensatory payments they have received so far. The basic question is, given the fact that the most important initial agreement of providing land to displaced people was openly flouted by the Madhya Pradesh agreement and that very large-scale, officially-documented irregularities took place in the distribution of cash compensation and other rehabilitation work, are most of the people threatened with displacement in a position to start a new life at a new place which will be comparable to the life they had been leading before displacement?
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