Narmada dam oustee families manipulated downward from 31,180 to 18,346, forcible eviction on cards: President told

Hannan Mollah

By A Representative

A Left parties-civil society organizations delegation led by CPI-M politbureau member Hannan Mollah, general secretary of the All-India Kisan Sabha, has told President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee that there is a “brazen attempt” on the part of the Government of Madhya Pradesh to “forcibly evict” thousands of Narmada dam oustees from their villages under the pretext of the Supreme Court order dated February 8, 2017.

Pointing out that the oustees are sought to be evicted forcibly before July 31, the delegation said, the state government is “ignoring” the Supreme Court order of providing “compensation and complete rehabilitation of the dam-affected villages”. Others who were in the delegation were Annie Raja of the National Federation of Indian Women and Vimal Bhai and Himshi Singh of the National Alliance of People’s Movements.

During the meeting, Himshi Singh gave crucial statistics, alleging, “the Madhya Pradesh government is manipulating its own statistics of the Action Taken Report- 2008 which gives a count of 31,180 families affected by the Narmada dam. It has now drastically reduced the number in the recently issued Gazette, 2017 by 18,346”.

A memorandum submitted by the delegation said, as per the orders of Supreme Court, the last date for giving compensation and ensuring complete rehabilitation was May 8, 2017, but till now, the state government has not done any survey which could list project affected families entitled to compensation and rehabilitation.

The memorandum wondered, how the state government could even think of evicting people without rehabilitation, insisting, this was a clear contempt of spirit of court orders and judgments along with the murder of constitutional rights of project-affected families.

Pointing out that the “forcible eviction” would prove to be a disaster, as families are without alternative land, livelihood and livable rehabilitation sites, Mollah told the President that he visited the Narmada Valley as a fact-finding team, and found that their life and culture was facing the threats of submergence.

“Our report brings out the dismal conditions of the project affected families, resettlement sites, and corruption in payment of compensations. As many as 192 villages, 1 town, 40,000 families and more than 2 lakh people will be affected”, Mollah contended, adding, “If the government does not take proper action in rehabilitating the affected families, the condition of the outsees in Madhya Pradesh would become as bad as the oustees of Gujarat or Maharashtra.”

Annie Raja claimed, “If the dam’s gates are closed down without proper rehabilitation, it will be remembered as a mass murder in human history. After the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Narmada Valley for Narmada Seva Yatra, the process of intimidation and eviction has suddenly been speeded.”

Vimal Bhai explained the environmental impact in the form of chlorofluorocarbon – an organic compound that contains carbon, chlorine, and fluorine, produced as volatile derivative of methane, ethane, and propane. Pointing out that this is happening “due to the submergence of lakhs of trees”, he also gave details of the condition of rehabilitation sites, which still lacked basic amenities, cracks on houses due to black soil and no drinking water availability.

The meeting, which took place ahead of the Rally for the Valley from June 5 to 7, 2017, reportedly saw President of India assure the delegation that he would “look into the matter and initiate necessary actions.”

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

Activists warn of gendered impact of VB-GRAMG Act, seek return to MGNREGA framework

By A Representative The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), along with the Agrarian Alliance and Workers’ Forum of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), has written to President Droupadi Murmu urging her to call upon Parliament to repeal the newly enacted Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-GRAMG Act) and restore and strengthen the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Stray dogs, an epsilon (ϵ) problem: Of child labour, and the art of misplaced priorities

By Bhaskaran Raman The Greek alphabet ϵ (epsilon) is used in maths and science to denote a quantity which is not zero, but extremely small *** Since the Supreme Court's interim order on the issue of stray dogs came out on 07 Nov 2025, there have been a range of opinion pieces speaking for the voiceless. Most of them take the stance that there is a "problem" with stray dogs, but that we need a humane solution. I agree with this broadly, but I think we need new terminology to talk about this.

Search This Blog