The Hindu : National : Alarm bells start ringing in Harsud

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Sunday, Jul 11, 2004

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National

Alarm bells start ringing in Harsud

By Lalit Shastri

A barber at work in his demolished shop in Harsud on Saturday. — Photo by A.M. Faruqui

HARSUD (MADHYA PRADESH), JULY 10. A large number of residents in this town, which will get submerged by the backwaters of the Indira Sagar dam on Narmada, are still holding their ground and are in no hurry to leave.

The monsoon rain is yet to lash this part of Madhya Pradesh as is normal around this time of the year. The prolonged dry spell during the initial monsoon phase has come as a respite for the people here but the cloud formation since yesterday has finally started ringing the alarm bells.

The official deadline for vacating the town ended on June 30. However, people are still busy supervising the labourers engaged in demolishing their homes. G.P. Dubey, who has lived in his double-story mansion near the Badali road junction, was busy mopping the floor of the temple he had built in his house when this correspondent met him. Mr. Dubey said that he would like to "serve" the family deity till the last moment and join his sons at New Harsud only after the waters of the Kalimachak river rose.

Many residents said they were not only sad because they were being uprooted from their homes but also because the old temples, mosques and dargahs that had symbolised their faith and belief were getting submerged. The temple of Lord Shiva at Saraswati Kund was a temple that dated back to 1100 A.D.

The Harsud railway station, falling on the Itarsi-Mumbai trunk route, has been abandoned. In the main town, there was plenty of activity but one saw tension in the faces of passersby. The congested lanes overflowed with the debris and wreckage of the abandoned houses. Houses were being pulled down. The tractor-trolleys and trucks were being loaded with the retrieved bricks, iron and wood for being transported elsewhere.

It is a different story for those running the tractor-trolleys and heavy-duty lorries from Harsud to New Harsud at Channera village because they are the ones doing a roaring business.

The Additional District Magistrate of Khandwa, who was supervising the rehabilitation at Channera said: "All of us should thank the weather Gods for the prolonged dry spell because otherwise all the relief and rehabilitation work would have come to a halt."

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