NEW DELHI: With the Satpura Tiger Reserve authorities refusing to renew the lease for fishing in the Tawa reservoir, the villagers displaced under the Sardar Sarovar Project more than three decades ago have decided to launch a `jungle satyagraha' to protect their rights.

The fishing lease for 34 primary cooperative societies, functioning under a federation, expires on December 23.

Talking to reporters here on Thursday after meeting senior officers of the Ministries concerned, Sunil, general secretary of Samajwadi Jan Parishad said that since they did not have the resources to fight the case in court, they could only get their point of view across by resorting to satyagraha.

The right for fishing in the reservoir was granted to the displaced tribals by the Madhya Pradesh Government through a Cabinet decision as part of a rehabilitation package.

The fish production doubled, employment increased three times and the income of the fishermen grew seven times with the setting up of the cooperatives as middlemen were eliminated from the process, Mr. Sunil said.

The Tiger Task Force, under Sunita Narain, had commended the experiment in its report and cited it as an example of people's participation in conservation and management of natural resources.

``However, now the State Government is saying that the Wildlife Department has raised some objection to fishing, and hence the lease cannot be renewed. The department is under the State Government and it is for them to do the needful to ensure that people do not suffer,'' he said.

The World Bank too had pronounced the `Satpura Landscape' as part of its proposed `Biodiversity Conservation and Rural Livelihood Improvement Project' that would be funded by it and Global Environment Facility.

The project proposes to ban fishing in the reservoir.

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