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More harm due to Narmada dams: Medha

Staff Correspondent

NBA dharna enters 30th day

BHOPAL: Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar said here on Thursday that the people of the Narmada valley, from Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh to Baruch in Gujarat, would give a fitting reply if the Madhya Pradesh Government failed to address the issues linked to resettlement and rehabilitation of the Omkareshwar and Indira Sagar project oustees within the next two days.

Talking to newspersons at a dharna site here, Ms. Patkar said the NBA’s just demands were within the ambit of the Constitution, the Narmada Tribunal Award and Supreme Court and High Court decisions..

Senior NBA activist Chittaroopa Palit and a dam-affected villager Bhagwan Singh Mukati are on dharna . Thursday was the 30th day of their hunger strike.

The fact that two persons were sitting on fast for 30 days showed how insensitive the Madhya Pradesh Government was. The issue of resettlement was not being addressed properly by the State Government. People were being denied “land for land.”

Ms. Patkar alleged that the Omkareshwar reservoir was filled up on the basis of a false affidavit and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led State Government had unnecessarily been treating the matter as a prestige issue.

She said: “despite the big dams, we are witnessing floods every where.”

The Narmada Valley projects have done more harm than good. They had displaced many people.

The State Government stood exposed as it was bent upon destroying one of the oldest river valley civilisations.

A frail and weak Ms. Palit said she was ready to face death in the course of her fight for the cause of the dam-affected people.

She accused the Shivraj Singh Chauhan Government of neglecting the “just demands” of the Narmada oustees and bulldozing their rights.

She said that the NBA had a 16-point charter of demands and the State Government, instead of issuing orders on these demands, was talking of setting up a committee to consider these demands. This was not acceptable to the NBA, she asserted.

Though the Omkareshwar reservoir was filled up, there had been no testing and not a single turbine started so far. This showed that the dam was a complete failure.

Senior NBA activist Alok Agrawal told mediapersons that in the last two days, they met Minister of State for Home Nagendra Singh twice and sought a meeting with the Chief Minister.

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