Narmada dam affected from MP to launch protest from today

Will press for demands; land against land, adequate compensation and sufficient time for resettlement

Thousands of villages from the five Narmada dam affected villages will launch a five-day Satyagraha in Bhopal under the aegis of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) to take on state authorities from June 28.

They will press for their demands; land against land, adequate compensation and sufficient time for resettlement. "We will once again raise our demand in favour of all five dam affected people who have lost their land, homes and arable land in interest of Indira Sagar, Omkareshwar, Upper Beda, Maan and Maheshwar hydel power project," Alok Agrawal, chief activist NBA told Business Standard.

He further said that nearly 5,000 affected people have already reached Bhopal and more are likely to flock in by Friday morning.

The state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had recently announced an additional rehabilitation compensation package of Rs 212 crore, which has been revised to Rs 225 crore, to the Omkareshwar project affected people. However, the affected villagers want land against land (and not cash), sufficient time to vacate the site. The state government has set a deadline of 15th of next month.

The Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC), a state-government entity and subsidiary of National Hydropower Corporation (NHPC) will raise its reservoir level to 196 meters and attain full generation capacity of 520 Mw of power once the affected people are removed. Nearly 500,000 people are affected from all the five projects or nearly 75000 families need proper land and job.

"We welcome the compensation package recently announced by the government but they should follow Supreme Court orders and compensate accordingly. If they have to be compensated through cash it should be recalculated from prevailing market rates of the land," said Agrawal.