The Hindu : Other States / Madhya Pradesh News : NBA flays Govt. for stalling public hearing

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Friday, Dec 10, 2004

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NBA flays Govt. for stalling public hearing

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, DEC. 9. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has severely criticised the Madhya Pradesh Government and the Khargone district administration for stalling the

public hearing of women displaced by four large dams in the Narmada valley before the National Commission for Women (NCW) by declaring prohibitory orders under

Section 144 in the district town of Khargone and areas near Upper Beda dam on December 5.

As a result of the ban order, the Chairperson of NCW, Poornima Advani, returned to Delhi without attending the hearing, the NBA has said in a statement.

Still around 1500 women and 500 men broke the ban orders and held a day- long public hearing in front of the District Collector's office at Khargone. They raised their voice to focus attention on the adverse impact of displacement, the NBA said while asking the State Government why they had been restrained from holding a public hearing when the

Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Gayatri Parivar were allowed take out their processions on the same day.

The NBA has claimed that women affected by four dams in the Narmada valley— the tribal women from Upper Beda in Khargone district, Dalit women from Harsud displaced by the Indira Sagar Project, women from the "now stalled" Maheshwar Project and tribal women from the submergence area of Man dam- had gathered at Khargone for the public hearing. The women from the Upper Beda dam area had invited the NCW for a public hearing.

The people affected by the Upper Beda dam have been fighting under the banner of the NBA for the last 8 years. This dam, being built on the Beda river— a tributary of the Narmada, is part of the 30 large dams being built in the Narmada valley. Fourteen tribal and Banjara villages would be submerged by this project.

In 1999, the NBA has said that the Madhya Pradesh Government had passed an order to constitute a Committee to examine decentralised water alternatives in lieu of the Upper Beda dam, but subsequently it did not allow the Committee to function and even began work on this project early this year. Despite there being a clear land-based rehabilitation policy, neither the land-owning nor the landless families were being allotted agricultural land as compensation.

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