Lower Suktel dam project creating a havoc in Odisha
Suktel is a tributary river of Mahanadi in
Odisha, flowing in the districts of Bolangir & Sonepur. The state Govt. has
been trying to build a dam named “Lower Suktel Irrigation Project (LSIP)” at
G.S. Dunguripali. CWC (Central Water Commission) allotted a sum of Rs. 217.13
Crores at 1994 estimate for the same later revised to Rs. 1042 Crores in 2009.
State Govt is said to have spent Rs. 300 Crores for land acquisition, of which
more than 60 crores has been mis-appropriated as pointed out in the CAG Report
and is under recovery process. The project is said to irrigate about 31000
hectares of land, whereas the FRL will submerge more than 4000 hectares of
already existing multi-crop agricultural land, forest, best kendu (tendu) leaf
production area, vegetable and paddy production area and self-reliant 30
villages of the drought prone dist.
The supporters of the project – mostly the
demand coming from the Bolangir town. It is being told by the affected villages
of submergence area that many of the powerful people of the town and outsiders
to the region, rich man with money and muscle have purchased huge patches of
land and have converted that to make profit from the compensation money. A few
powerful and influential political leaders of the region have purchased
hundreds of acres of land as “Benaami” (anonymous) downstream keeping in view
of the future mineral processing of Iron Ore, Thermal Power Plant, Bauxite,
Lead and many other valuable minerals, including gem stones.
The question arises here: an irrigation
project, why is it being opposed?
Resisting villagers have given the alternate
proposals – that instead of the said 30 meters tall dam, small height multiple
barrages be done at multiple stages across the river. That will not submerge
the fertile agricultural land, productive forest, won’t uproot people and
villages, are less expensive and low maintenance in the long run. That will be
more effective for irrigation, keeping drought in control of a much larger
region than the big dam, and maintain the bio-diversity. Large dams not only
cause big displacement, but they also create water deserts. The biggest example
is Hirakud Dam in the state, where the loss incurred to the people and
environment is enormous. The huge reservoir is a big water desert of the
region.
In a fact finding journey to five villages, it was found that, the figures presented by the officials are misleading and full with lies. Some of the villages which the survey report states as partial submergence, checking on ground at those villages with GPS device, it was found to be under 8 meters of water during FRL, at the highest point at middle of the village. Also as with experience we have seen in Hirakud that the villages where there was never before submergence, flood of 2011 August, they were washed off, on the upper region of Hirakud Dam due to Back-water. So partial submergence is a myth during the monsoon.
People in some villages have been paid up compensation for their land, house, trees etc. The maximum amount that has been paid for per acre of agricultural land is Rs. 55,000/- + Rs. 10,000. With this price, it is almost impossible to purchase equivalent land at elsewhere. The burning example is displaced people of Tikhali Dam near Nuapada/ Khariar. Only a handful of the displaced about 10% have been able to settle at a new place. Remaining 90% people have lost their culture, society, rights to common land, cattle grazing land, forest and other common resources of human civilization. The displaced people are looked upon in an inferior manner at the new place where they go. Some pro-displacement people argue that they should move to nearby towns and live happily; but while saying so, they forget that it is impossible to live up without a neighboring society. As said by the uprooted at gunpoint people of the Tikhali (Lower Indra) dam project – “where ever we go, people kick us out. They say that we are detached flying leaves.” In a recent bizarre incident, the villagers did not even let the dead body of a displaced person being burnt at their mortuary. The dead body had to be brought back to a distance of 13 kilometers for the last rites. Many villagers still have not received any compensation whereas the dam construction is over by 70%. Those who were displaced are preferring to even come back, and rebuild their houses at the old place. Since past 5 years over a hundred school going children have been deprived of their basic right to education
Displacement by large scale water logging
causes extinction – of culture, people, species, societies, forests, insects,
birds, animals, reptiles, civilizations and brings in destruction, oppression,
desertification, diseases, and deaths. Smaller is better, bigger is worse.
The Lower Suktel Irrigation project has
always remained in controversies. While the villagers who are going to be
displaced have been agitating against the project since the day it was
conceived, people – including Balangir city dwellers – who are supposed to be
benefitted by the project have started their agitation in support of it.
Recently, the agitation of the pro-project groups reached one of its peaks
which forced the government to take immature steps. To pacify the
pro-project agitators it sent out a construction team to the project area even
as host of controversial matters, including the rehabilitation and resettlement
issues, had not been addressed. Quite naturally the villagers who fear
displacement protested against it and the team had to return from the
site. This not only added fuel to the conflict but also cost to the
exchequer.
Large scale and centralized irrigation
projects such as the Lower Suktel Irrigation Project are not only
socio-economically unviable but also ecologically devastating. They
create large scale displacement and cause huge damage to the local
environment. They also cause climate change by sinking trees and organic
matters. In fact, while the villagers to be displaced have always raised
these issues, government’s own officials have also admitted it. Further
the cost involved in such projects make them economically unviable from the
state’s economy point of view. The project, that got government approval
in 1998 is to submerge 5216 ha of land in 26 villages (26 completely and 10
partially). However, local people apprehend the submergence will cover as
many as 56 villages. A district whose forest resources have vastly
depleted and where distressed migration is a common feature, this is supposed
to be the only area from where people don’t migrate much because of the good
quality Kendu Leaf and other forest produces they get. We therefore urge upon the government to
think of this big ecological and economic loss to the local people and stop
going ahead with the project.
In a shocking incidence the Government of Odisha has forcibly started
work on the Lower Suktel Irrigation project in Balangir district. As
reports come in, about 15 platoons of police are helping the Lower Suktel Dam
Division and Odisha Construction Corporation in layout of the spillways.
The local people under leadership of Lower Suktel Budi Anchal Sangram Parishad
have been opposing the construction of such a large dam based irrigation
project and the Chief Secretary of the state, in a recent meeting with their
representatives, had assured that no work will be started without discussing
with them. “However,
i.e. on 8th April 2013, the work has been started at gun
point without any such promised discussion with people taking place.
Today, as we have been informed by the struggling people, the police has
arrested about 80 odd leaders of the Parishad and the forceful construction
work has started. This is undemocratic and Water Initiatives Odisha
condemns this in strongest of words”, said Ranjan Panda, in a press statement.
There are alternatives to both the key objectives of this
project. Balangir has a rich history of traditional tank irrigation
through surface water harvesting management systems. Instead of
such a devastating centralized large scale irrigation project it should think
of creating several small check dams supported by lift irrigation technology in
decentralized manner. Bandh, Katas, Mudas and other traditional
irrigation systems should be revived and renovated and linked to such
systems. Decentralized irrigation systems will not only cover
more area but also help loss of huge amount of water that happens in large
scale canal irrigation systems. Further, the people themselves can own
and hence maintain these systems without having to depend on the government
always. And that would involve much less cost than the estimate cost of about
1041 crores (that too 2009 rates, an increase of almost four times from the
original estimate).
There are also alternatives to drinking water provision in the city of
Balangir. All tanks and ponds of the city must be freed from encroachment
and pollution. Balangir citizens have themselves said that these tanks
can be used to provide drinking water to the city, as the case was in recent
past. In scarcity times and years, when surface water bodies may fail,
there could be alternative arrangements in place by digging intake wells in the
river. The present system of drinking water provisioning for the city,
which brings water from 50 kilometres away, is testimony to difficulties that
the city dwellers face. Without looking for local specific solutions sole
dependence on the proposed Suktel Irrigation Project will always be
problematic. So, we once again urge upon the government to look for
locally suitable and adaptable solutions which are economically viable and
environmentally sustainable. The other danger with creation of large
reservoirs is that the industries and thermal power plants will start
encroaching upon the water as it comes handy for them. This will surely
generate further conflicts in future as we have seen in Hirakud Dam. As a
result, both irrigation and drinking water provisioning will suffer. By
abandoning the Lower Suktel Irrigation project, such future conflicts can also
be avoided, suggested Panda.
Work on the Lower Suktel irrigation project
in Odisha was started April 11, 2013 amid public protests and heavy security.
Police arrested 70 members of the people's front fighting the project as they
forcibly entered the project site to try and stop the work at Pardhiapali,
about 25 km from Balangir town, on Tuesday. The dam authorities had began work
on the project on the Suktel river, a tributary of the Tel, on Monday.
Apprehending more trouble, extra police force was deployed at the project site
next day. The Odisha Construction Company officials continued with the lay out
work of the spillway of the project.
At least 1,200 people of the Lower Suktel
Budi Anchal Sangram Parishad (LSBASP), including women and school children,
thronged the project site and protested construction of the dam spillway which
they say is illegal. Those arrested included president and vice president of
LSBASP, Ghunu Sahu and Udaya Singh Thakur. Superintendent of police (SP) of
Balangir, R Prakash, said the arrests were made to ensure that the work of the
project continues. “We neither applied any force nor did we arrest any women or
children. We will see that work of the project goes on smoothly,” Prakash said.
The Rs 1,041 crore project had been hanging
fire for the past 12 years due to the ongoing conflict between the pro-dam and
anti-dam activists. The project, when completed, will irrigate 29,146 ha of
land in Balangir and 2,684 ha in Sonepur district, covering 189 villages.
Despite the arrests, people of the area said that they will continue their
fight. “Let police arrest us. Still, we will come here everyday and will oppose
the project work. Under no circumstances will we allow the project,” said
Pabitra Gadtia, an anti-dam activist. General secretary of LSBASP, Satya
Banchhor, said the government had not kept its promise. “It is unfortunate that
despite assurance by the state chief secretary during the bilateral talk that
LSBASP would be informed about the project status, the government had resorted
to secrecy about date of commencement of the project. Moreover, the government
decided to start the project at gun point,” he alleged.
LSBASP says there is no necessity of a dam.
“Instead smaller traditional water harvesting structures can be made to address
the irrigation problem of the farmers. The government never delivers when it
comes to rehabilitation and compensation to the displaced villagers. The
Rengali project and Hirakud dam projects in Sambalpur district are
glaring examples. We don’t need the dam”, said Thakur, vice president of
LSBASP.
THE Orissa government has finally begun
disbursing compensation to likely oustees in the lower Suktel dam project.
Nineteen families of Magurbeda village in Balangir district have been handed
over a rehabilitation package of more than Rs 12.5 lakh. Ironically, the first
lot of beneficiaries chosen by the state authorities will be the least affected
by the project.
Magurbeda is not one of the villages that
will be submerged. The people of this village will, in fact, lose only 23
hectares (ha) of land. This tract is proposed to be used for constructing the
offices of the dam project's officials.
When asked to explain the rationale behind
this move, special officer Binaya Kumar Gadnaik said: "We are unable to
give compensation to the other people because they aren't accepting land
acquisition notices. Only those living in Magurbeda fell in line, and hence
they received the money." Gadnaik added that even the people of Magurbeda
were extending their cooperation only because they were not being displaced.
The dam issue came to the fore recently
following activist Medha Patkar's visit to Dungripali village in Balangir
district, where local people had launched an agitation against the project five
years ago. Patkar's visit was a part the National Alliance of People's Movement
programme.
The lower Suktel dam project was conceived to
bring prosperity to the parched Balangir district. According to plans drawn in
1996, the dam will be built to connect the Budalagen and Jharepahad hills that
straddle Suktel river. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 217 crore. It is
expected to provide irrigation facilities to the district along with 179 cubic
metres of drinking water to Balangir town. The reservoir of the dam will cover
at least 5216 ha and it will officially lead to the submergence of 26 villages
(though unofficial sources put this number at 56).
"Should we be uprooted from our land or
should the government reward us for having protected the forest?" asks
Ghunu Sahu, president, Lower Suktel Budi Anchal Sangram Parishad, a forum of 30
villages protesting against the project. Not only will the displacement have a
bearing on the livelihoods of the people, it would also affect the biodiversity
of the region. The area is known for its tendu leaf cultivation and is also
rich in non-timber forest produce such as medicinal herbs, chaar,
broom grass and mahua.
Environmentalist Arttabandhu Mishra of
Sambalpur University is of the opinion that "unless deforestation is
checked, Balangir will become a desert in two or three decades". A report
of the Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC), a Bhubaneswar-based
non-governmental organisation, observes that Balangir has lost its forest
wealth rapidly. It notes that while officials are claiming to restore the
ecological balance in this region through the dam, they are actually going to
destroy one of the forested areas of the district.
On April 29 , 2013 behaviour of the police at
the Lower Suktel Project site targeting the journalists and right activists is
yet another indication that government wants go ahead with the project at gun
point. Police had targeted every journalists who were there. It was journalist
Amitabh Patra who was brutally attacked by the cops. Unfortunately Balangir SP
R Prakash justifies the police action. He said Lenin Kumar was a Maoist and
Amitabh Patra was an outsider who had no business here, rather he was
instigating people against the administration.Since section 144 has been declared, no one is
allowed to go to the project area without taking prior permission from the
authorities.
The SP said that the journalists must display
their I-card while at the project site or any untoward incident may happen. In
a way it is a clear message to the journalists not into the venture into the
project site, or face the music. It is strange that the so called civil society
of Balangir has not uttered a word on the barbaric act of Balangir police on
the women, activists and the journalists. Shame on them.
According to Saket Sahu an
activist “The agitation against Lower Suktel Dam
project was brutally attacked by striking forces on 29th , April
2013 who were in a drunken state when they faced more than 2000 villagers who
had come to halt the construction work. An eminent journalist Amitabh Patra was
brutally attacked and arrested. His camera has been smashed by the police.
Amitabh is now in a Bolangir hospital. Editor of Nissan, Lenin Ray who
was visiting the area also has been arrested. The police seem to have declared
that excepting OTV no other media is allowed there.”
Tarun Mishra of Madhyantara video news
magazine said ” This barbaric state
repression started when the displaced villagers gathered together on the road
near Dunguripali and tried to block the path of the construction brigade and
their vehicles from entering in to proposed construction site early this
morning. The police forces were fully drunk and were not bothered to listen to
any sane argument. The created chaos and started resorting to brutal lathi
charge. When Amitabh's cameras was first smashed, he protested and wanted draw
their attention to the fact that he was a reporter. But that made them furious
and he was hit on the head. 30 women and 10 men have been seriously injured.
Some were lying unconscious on the sand. 10 platoons of force were in action.
All injured persons have been arrested. Minaketan Chand - a leading villager
who once guided out Madhayantara team has also been seriously attacked by the
police. His whereabouts are not known. “The area seems to have been handed over to drunken
police and insane Mafia. “
Around 16 people including women were arrested by the police while they
were agitating against the Lower Suktel irrigation dam project. As per sources,
when police and official of Odisha Construction Company, which is carrying out
the construction works, were on their way to the project site, they were
intercepted by the villagers at Pardhiapali.
They complained to the officials that the district administration had
cheated them by not paying the compensation for their land acquired for the
project. They asked the Construction officials to stop the work until the
compensation is paid.
As the officials and police tried to march ahead, the anti-dam agitators
opposed them leading to a scuffle. Police had to lathi charge and in the
process, many women and the journalist who was covering the agitation, were
injured.
The irrigation project’s
design was approved almost a decade and half ago. In all these years,
even though the government could not proceed with the project, it did not do
anything either to solve the drinking water and irrigation problems of the
area. The current anger and agitations are therefore creation of government’s
apathy. The government should not delay further on this and talk to all
the people, both the villagers who fear submergence and the people who are
proposed beneficiaries. Further,
now that the project’s time line is over as on 31st March 2013,
all its approvals and clearances, including environmental clearances, are
invalid. The government therefore has got no right to continue with this
project without looking at the designs and impacts afresh.
There may not be any debate
that the dams on a river are useful for production of electricity, but often
the larger project may impose enormous ill-affect on the people living in the
downstream.
Dam building
has a very long history. Nearly eight thousand year old irrigation canals found
near the foothills of Zagros mountains in the eastern side of Mesopotamia
suggest that the farmers there may have been the first dam builders. These
primitive dams might perhaps have been small weirs of brushwood and earth to
divert water into canals. Evidence of dams, nearly 3000 years old, however is
found in modern day Jordan, as part of an elaborate water supply system. Here,
the largest dam was perhaps 4 metres high and 80 metres long. By about 1000 BC,
evidence of stone and earth dams are to be found in the Mediterranean, in the
Middle East, China and Central America. Romans excelled in the area, and their
best works are to be seen in Spain. A 46 metre high stone dam near Alicante
began in 1580 and completed 14 years later was the highest in the world for the
better part of three centuries.
River work
and dam building also has a long history in South Asia. The canal system from
the Cauvery river in South India, the anicuts, continue to be an engineering
marvel even today. Long embankments have existed in Sri Lanka since fourth
century BC. One of these embankments was raised to a height of 34 metres and
was the world’s highest dam for a millenium. Another embankment was raised to a
height of 15 metres and had a length of 14 kilometres!
Where as dams have a very
long history, large scale and concerted opposition to them is evident only
since the seventies, world over. May be that is because the impacts of the post
war dam building mania took about two decades to sink in. The early movements,
notes McCully, were mostly inspired and led by conservationists in order to
preserve wilderness areas, and many did not succeed. The notable of these
struggles include the hard fought but unsuccessful campaign against the 191
metre New Melones Dam during the 1970’s, the struggle of Cree Indians against
Quebec’s mammoth James Bay Project (the last two phases being abandoned due to
the struggle in 1994); that against Norway’s Alta Dam between 1970 and 1981,
the ongoing campaign against dams planned for Chile’s spectacular Biobio River;
the Katun Dam campaign in Russia (the dam has been suspended); the violent
protests by the Igorot ethnic minority in the Philippines which stopped the
Chico river dams and the struggles of the local people and their supporters
against dams in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Nepal.
These are examples of
opposition and struggle from democratically constituted countries. Anti dam
struggles in countries with closed political systems also became a symbol for
the fight against the system itself.
The struggle
against the Narmada dams in India since the mid eighties has, in the words of Washington Post become a global ‘symbol
of environmental, political and cultural calamity’. But Narmada is only one of
a long list of examples of resistance to large dams in India. In 1946, thirty thousand people marched
against the Hirakuud dam, the first huge multipurpose dam project completed in
independent India. In 1970, some 4,000 people occupied the Pong Dam
construction site to demand resettlement land. The dam was completed, but fifty
years later; a majority of the oustees are still to be resettled. The campaign
against the Tehri dam in the Himalayas began in mid 1970s and still continues.
In nearly all the cases, the opposition to the dam could not stop it, even
though the people resisting were not far away conservationists, but those
directly affected by displacement. It is
therefore curious that the first successful anti-dam campaign in India, against
the 120-metre Silent Valley dam in Kerela, was not due to displacement, but
conservation. Unlike most Indian dams, few people would have been displaced by
the project, but it would have destroyed a major rainforest of the country. In
the end, the concern for rainforest and its endangered inhabitant, the lion
tailed macaque, persuaded the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi to intervene
and stop the project. The campaign against the dam is significant in political
terms too. The political left in India has generally kept itself away from the
anti dam movement. But one of the groups in the forefront of the Silent Valley
campaign was the left oriented people’s science organisation, the Kerela Sastra
Sahitya Parishad (KSSP; the Kerela
Science and Literature Society). The success of the Silent Valley campaign
spilled over to proposed dams on the Godavari and Indravati rivers, at
Bhopalpatnam, Inchampalli and Bodhgat that together would have displaced over
100,000 adivasis and flooded thousands of hectares of forests, including a
tiger sanctuary. Local people, adivasis and supporting environment and human
rights activists combined to have the projects suspended.
Except for the urban slum
dwellers, the rest of the poor population of India subsists mainly from the
availability of some or the other form of natural resource – land for
subsistence farming, bamboo, grass, leather, minerals for artisinal
occupations, various biomass sources for fuel and housing needs. The best
example is that of the adivasis. Living mostly in or close to the forests,
their economy, culture and society is organically linked to these forests. The
material that goes into making their dwellings or huts, most of the food,
fuelwood for cooking and water is obtained as a free common resource from their
immediate physical surroundings. Their encounter with the market is mostly at
the weekly travelling haats which
provide essential items like salt, kerosene for domestic lighting, and a few
times a year, bare minimum clothing. Items like cooking oil, cereals, and
pulses, sugar, spices and soap are luxuries, to be indulged in once in a while.
A
fresh socio-economic and ecological impact assessment of this project should be
done and tabled in front of the people. The government should also work
on alternative proposals and place it before the people. It is after that
only any further decision on the Lower Suktel Irrigation project be taken,
taking the people of the area on board in a transparent and coherent
manner. We therefore urge upon the Govt. to immediately stop the
construction work, withdraw police force from the area, release all the people
who have been arrested and take suitable measures to look at the alternatives
rather than going for this devastating project.
This is a serious problem
and it needs expeditious check from the Government site otherwise the poor
masses will have to face the music.
SIDDHARTHA SHANKAR MISHRA,
SAMBALPUR, ODISHA
No comments:
Post a Comment