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Narmada rehabilitation: OSG report and after

Ramaswamy R. Iyer

The Oversight Group's Report gives the impression that the status of rehabilitation work in the Narmada Valley is reasonably satisfactory. The facts are otherwise. The report needs to be summarily rejected.

EARLY IN July, the Oversight Group (OSG) submitted its Report on the status of rehabilitation in the Narmada Valley. While the Report did mention some deficiencies, the overall impression that it gave was that the status of rehabilitation work in the Narmada Valley was reasonably satisfactory. The Prime Minister considered that Report to be a fair account of the situation and took the view that the work on the dam should not be stopped, and that rehabilitation should be brought up-to-date taking advantage of the stoppage of construction during monsoon. Taking note of this, the Supreme Court, at the hearing on July 10, 2006, decided: (a) not to stop the construction; (b) to ask the parties to file their comments on the OSG's Report within two weeks, with a further week for rejoinders; and (c) to hear the matter again in September.

The fact that the OSG's overall assessment is at variance with the grim picture the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has been presenting seems to reflect adversely on the latter. However, is that superficial impression correct? This article will argue that if any adverse reflection is warranted, it is on the OSG's Report.

First, given the subject of enquiry (the `ground reality' in regard to the rehabilitation of displaced persons, including tribal communities), this writer had serious reservations on the composition of the Group in terms of both exclusions and inclusions. However, he will refrain from going into that question. (He is prepared to state his reservations if called upon to do so.) The Group has submitted its Report, and we have to deal with that Report now.

Secondly, the Government's objective in setting up the OSG seemed to be questionable. The NBA had stated that the rehabilitation work was in arrears and of poor quality, and had submitted detailed documentation in this regard. The findings of the Group of Ministers (GoM) supported the NBA's contentions. What was needed was corrective action and not further examination. If confirmation of those findings was considered necessary, they could have been subjected to a direct check. Instead, those statements were set aside, and a separate survey by another agency was instituted. Prima facie, that seemed to be evasive action.

Thirdly, the OSG's approach (and that reference includes the NSSO as well) did not inspire confidence. The survey was conducted largely with reference to the Action Taken Report (ATR) of the Madhya Pradesh Government and not with reference to a carefully formulated questionnaire. The NBA had brought to notice some other disturbing features of the proceedings, such as excessive association of Government officials, the partisan nature of some of the surveyors (some were found to be actively canvassing the cause of the Project), inadequate opportunities for the affected persons to make their representations, and so on. One does not know what corrective action, if any, was taken by NSSO and the OSG. Leaving that aside, it appeared that the OSG was not particularly anxious to hear what the NBA — the leading complainant — had to say. It certainly had a meeting with NBA (at the latter's insistence), which submitted abundant material but that was not enough. One would have expected the OSG to say to the NBA: "You are saying that rehabilitation is incomplete and bad. Show us. You are saying that people are suffering. Take us to those people." Similarly, one would have expected the OSG to have a detailed meeting with the GoM, listen to their impressions, and ask questions, and reflect on what the Ministers had to say. Unfortunately, the OSG simply ignored the picture presented by the NBA and the GoM. It is significant that the OSG Report makes no reference at all (either in the acknowledgements or in the body) to the submissions of the NBA or the GoM's report. On the other hand, the Report says: "No individual group provided any specific information as to individual grievances or in respect to any of the R&R [resettlement and rehabilitation] sites."

However, leaving all that aside, let us look at the OSG's report: how good is it? The NBA has prepared a detailed critique, which draws attention to serious errors and omissions in the Report. This cannot be dismissed as `prejudiced' or `defensive.' The critique presents facts and numbers and is extremely damaging to the Report. This is corroborated by another study. A group consisting of persons from the Council for Social Development, JNU, and other institutions — persons at least as worthy of respect as the members of the OSG — visited a number of villages and prepared a report. Their findings are also substantially at variance with the OSG's. In essence, the point is that several thousand un-rehabilitated families have escaped the OSG's attention for whatever reason. Space considerations make it difficult for this article to go into the facts and numbers in detail, but interested readers can refer to the NBA critique and the CSD-JNU report.

Further, and regrettably, the OSG has grossly and inexcusably exceeded its mandate. It attributes the "poor progress in shifting of PAFs [projected affected families] to R&R sites" to: (a) "the provisions of the NWDT [Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal] Award"; and (b) "the absence of threat of submergence.. That one remark is enough to damn the entire Report. Consider the implications. The great merit of the NWDT Award was that it made trail-blazing recommendations on the problems of displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation. The Supreme Court made some further valuable contributions in some of its Orders. Now the OSG says the NWDT's recommendations were the source of all the trouble. Did the distinguished members realise that by implication they were also criticising the Supreme Court? Apart from that, what the OSG is implying is that such liberal attitudes to rehabilitation are impracticable, and that people must be made to move under the threat of submergence. What comment in polite language can one make on that attitude?

The OSG also finds the SRP (cash compensation in lieu of land) acceptable, and quotes the Madhya Pradesh Grievance Redressal Authority (GRA) in support. The job of the GRA is to listen to grievances with reference to a given framework and resolve them, and not to express opinions on the framework itself. If it does, those opinions carry no weight. The GRA is not on a par with the NWDT and the Supreme Court. Similarly, the OSG's mandate was to check conformity to the existing policies and packages, and not to comment on those policies and packages. `Land for land' is the basic principle underlying the Sardar Sarovar Project rehabilitation policy, and this is one of the hallmarks of its claimed `enlightened' nature. To suggest now a return to the old, discredited practice of cash compensation is to abandon the enlightenment that has been painfully achieved over decades. It also amounts a re-writing of the NWDT Award.

The OSG report further says: "The offer of Government land in place of land acquired did not meet the requirements of PAFs and this was the most significant reason for their opting for SRP." This is not a justification for SRP, but an indication of failure on the part of the state. In terms of the rehabilitation package, the PAFs were to be offered irrigable land of good quality, and it is clear from paragraph 2.19 of the OSG Report that the land offered did not conform to that prescription. It was therefore not a valid offer; it was merely a method of forcing the PAFs to accept cash.

Finally, it must be noted that the OSG's own report shows that rehabilitation is incomplete and deficient in some respects — if not to the extent indicated by the NBA and the GoM, then to a lesser extent. The Prime Minister's statement also implicitly acknowledges this. What follows?

There is no doubt whatever that the basic condition of rehabilitation in advance of submergence has been violated, and the numbers involved run into thousands. The least that can be done now is to stop the construction work, bring the rehabilitation work up to the mark in terms of numbers as well as quality, and then resume the work on the dam.

It may appear that there is no need to continue to press for a stoppage of work as construction will in any case stop because of the monsoon. That is the basis of the Prime Minister's statement. There are three difficulties with that `practical' argument. First, it is by no means clear that work will completely stop during the monsoon; reports to the contrary have appeared. Secondly, in so far as a certain number of families now face submergence without rehabilitation, there is an existing illegality: is this to be condoned or covered by an amnesty? Thirdly, it strains one's credulity to believe that the backlog in rehabilitation work in terms of numbers and quality can be cleared within three months; in all probability it will take much longer. It follows that construction work should not be promptly resumed after the monsoon; rehabilitation should be fully completed first. The Prime Minister's statement fails to say so. One must hope that the Supreme Court will take note of this at the next hearing.

As for the OSG's Report, it stands thoroughly discredited and needs to be summarily rejected.

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