Skip to main content

Andhra govt, Centre pushing for Polavaram project, setting aside Dalit, Adivasi rights in scheduled areas: NGO panel

A farm proposed to be acquired
A fact-finding committee, which visited the Polavaram Multipurpose Project-affected villages in Andhra Pradesh, has in its preliminary report said that land acquisition for the project is being carried out "without settlement of forest rights of thousands of adivasis as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation (LARR) Act, 2013".
Also noting "problems in the allotment of land for the displaced Dalits and Adivasis, lack of grievance redressal systems, poor rehabilitation facilities and weak monitoring", the committee has said, it can confirm the "numerous complaints of legal and procedural violations, corruption and irregularities in the land acquisition and rehabilitation process."
The committee noted that it is gravely concerned over "the scale of displacement, particularly of Adivasis and Dalits in the constitutionally protected Schedule-V area", adding, "The Central government, along with the Andhra Pradesh government, must assume full responsibility to safeguard the rights and interests of all the affected people, before racing ahead with engineering works of the project."
Jointly organized by the National Alliance of People's Movements, Adivasi Sankshema Parishad, Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruttridarula Union, Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV), and the Human Rights Forum, the committee visited villages Errapadu and Reddygudem in Upperu panchayat, as also Vinjaram, Koida, Parentaalpalli, and Singanapalli resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) colonies.
The committee consisted of Prafulla Samantara, recipient of the Goldman Environment Price, 2017; Sharanya Nayak, social activist from Koraput, Odisha; Babji Juvvala of the Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruttidarula Union; Kaki Madhu of the Adivasi Sankshema Parishad, Andhra Pradesh; Meera Sanghamitra, human rights activist; independent journalists Malini Subramaniam, among other.
Following an interaction with chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) and the Union water resources secretary, under whose charge the Polavaram Project is being monitored as a 100% Centrally funded project since 2014, Samantara told news person in Delhi that they have demanded "a full-fledged judicial inquiry into the nexus of middlemen and officials who are allegedly "swindling huge chunk of the rehabilitation money and the state exchequer."
R Shridhar of the Environics Trust, who accompanied him, said, Poalvaram was a classic case wherein "without an unambiguous clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) as per the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, and public hearings in all affected areas, the project works are going ahead with least regard to the enormous scale of social and environmental impacts."
Sanghamitra told newspersons that, as per the records of Andhra Pradesh, 372 villages are slated to be submergence and a total of 1,06,798.63 acres of land in East Godavari and 51,858 acres of land in West Godavari is being acquired for the project. "The Centre, along with the recently constituted Inter-Ministerial R&R Monitoring Committee of Government of India, are legally mandated to ensure that LARR Act and FRA Act are fully implemented before acquisition and submergence".
"As the supreme constitutional custodian of the rights of adivasis in Schedule V areas, and Polavaram being a National Project, the President is directly responsible for the well-being of the one lakh adivasis in the region", said Vimalbhai of the Matu Jan Sangathan. He added, "The Centre must play a very proactive role in monitoring the overall project and not merely the engineering works."
If social worker Bapji Juvvala stated that locally they have "unearthed evidence of numerous instances of corruption, in which many middlemen, officials and political party leaders are involved", with the state government remaining "completely nonchalant", Krishnanaveni of Darbagudem panchayat noted, the state was trying to create conflict amongst adivasis by ‘rehabilitating’ some project affected adivasis on the lands of other adivasis.

Comments

TRENDING

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

Behind the scene? Ex-IAS, now Modi man in Yogi Cabinet, who lined up Mahakumbh VVIP comforts for Gujarat colleagues

The other day, I was talking to a senior IAS official about whether he or his colleagues had traveled to the recently concluded Mahakumbh in Allahabad, which was renamed Prayagraj by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as part of his intense Hindutva drive. He refused to reveal any names but said he had not gone there "despite arrangements for Gujarat cadre IAS officials" at the Mahakumbh VVIP site. "The water is too dirty—why take the risk?" he asked.