NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of the sit-in by the Narmada dam displaced families at Jantar Mantar here to get themselves heard, on Thursday more than 300 farmers and fisher people, including women, affected by the Maheshwar dam on the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh, arrived here to seek justice. The Maheshwar dam is the first privatised hydel project in the country and is being promoted by S. Kumars group.

Under the aegis of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the displaced families, seeking rehabilitation and resettlement on a par with the Sardar Sarovar package, demonstrated at the offices of the Rural Electrification Corporation and the Ministry of Environment and Forests seeking immediate withdrawal of the permission given for the construction of the Maheshwar dam.

In their meeting with the Additional Secretary of the Environment Ministry — in the absence of the Minister — the representatives alleged that the environmental clearance to the project was "illegal" as the land availability details were false and more than 8,000 families working on sand quarries, draw down riverbed and fishing had been "deliberately and wilfully" excluded by the promoters and the government. They also disputed the number of the displaced families worked out by the private promoter.

The representatives of the affected families, who have been struggling for land-for-land rehabilitation for the last 10 years, also called on the Housing and Urban development Corporation, REC, Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited, Power Finance Corporation and other financial institutions not to jeopardise public money in the Maheshwar project on social, technical and financial grounds. According to Chittaroopa Palit and Alok Aggarwal of the NBA, the promoters had increased the project outlay at least five times in the last 15 years which would result in prohibitively high electricity costs for consumers and play havoc with the State's economy. They said that although the Central government was aware that the agricultural lands shown to be available for rehabilitation and resettlement were "imaginary and non-existent," the clearances for the project had not been revoked. "Now that the project work had been resumed after a gap of five years, this status would lead to the non-replacement of lands and livelihoods envisaged in the policy and a great human disaster," they said. Apparently, the officials conceded that the files relating to the Maheshwar dam displaced families had gone "missing" and there was no official record of the affected families. According to Ms. Palit, the officials assured them that the files would be located as soon as possible and that a committee would be formed to look into the complaints of the displaced families and river workers.

The dharna will continue on Friday at Jantar Mantar.

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