Villagers Under Threat Of Displacement By Polavaram Dam Feel Insecure

Prachi Raturi Misra | TNN 

Bhadrachalam: Thin arms tightly wrapped around himself, bright shiny eyes constantly gazing at you, Ravi Kumar Reddy has an unusually resolute voice for a class three student.
But then, the circumstances he’s living in are not easy either. Ravi lives under the constant fear of not being able to study, see the fields he’s grown up seeing or being able to play with his friends from school. 

“It’s better if they don’t make the dam. Our school, our fields will all be under water,” says Ravi pulling at his scrunched up blue shirt.

Ravi’s village, Kollur, is just one of the over 300 villages that will go under the Godavari water if the Polavaram Dam is made. His school, that has been running on solar energy for the past 15 years, has 130 students, all of whom are as clueless about the future.Polavaram, like all other dams, has its share of displacement stories, about two lakh of them. So when Chandravati, a woman sarpanch from Pochavaram village is asked about the dam, she takes a while to speak. 

“Its been a little over three years since we got electricity. The road is pucca, the fields are doing ok. We are happy with our lives. Just when it began to look up, we will be asked to move. It’s not right,” she says, her face a crimson red. Her husband Mangareddy sums it quicker, “Please tell the government we don’t want to move anywhere. How will they ever give us our environment back?” 

Chandravati and Mangareddy are both from Kondareddy tribe, a tribe that has been enlisted as endangered. The Polavaram debate is about 50 years old, older than most of them, yet it hasn’t forgotten to leave a mark of worry on their young-old faces.

Ask T Bhubama. A Khoya tribal, Bhubama has no land to call her own so she won’t get any compensation from the government even when she is displaced but she has an adopted daughter to take care of. 

The thin freckled Bhubama leases about an acre and a half of land every year. She has to pay a lease of Rs 2,000 so that leaves her with Rs 3,000, enough for her and her daughter survive. 

For a few others, who have nothing to call their own, even a palm tree means Rs 5,000 a year. Explains V Rukmini Rao, who has been working with tribal women in the area for a decade, “They make baskets from the palm leaves, the fruit, means money as well. Then tendu leaves, gum, fruits, all mean money to villagers, They’ve built their lives around this set up”. 

Seventy-year-old Kanakama from Rekhapally, another village, looks confused at the arrival of a car in her village. Ask her if she knows what is going on and she says, “Yes I believe our fields will be under water. We get about two crops a year. We don’t need more water to irrigate them. We are happy where we are? Then why should people want to move us or give us more water?” 

What is bothering environmentalists is the “logic” behind the whole project. Like Bhiksham Gujja, policy advisor, global freshwater programme, WWF International, Gland, Switzerland, puts it, “Three people have to be displaced to irrigate one acre of land. Out of these three people, two are tribals. Where is the logic behind this project”? 

Another bone of contention between government and the locals as well as environmentalists and other group working for people who will be affected by the project, is how successive governments have refused to look at the project in a new light. 

Agrees C H Hanumantha Rao, economist and member, national advisory council, Government of
India, “The issues have changed, the demography has changed. The need for the dam then and now cannot be the same”. 

After a day’s trip to the Polavaram site and having interacted with locals, Nitin Desai, an ex-UN official and an expert on water issue, thought it was important to consider what the people want. 

“The people definitely don’t seem to want the dam. Their opinion needs to be taken into account.” Rao feels that a project like this is not just about taking away livelihood from the tribals, but it’s also about how the lives of people living in the city could be affected.

“The project is supposed to cost Rs 20,000 crore. Its a huge sum of money. And when other countries are actually realising what a big waste big dams are, we are yet to wake up to that reality”, he adds. 

But then huge projects mean huge money and Ravi or Bhubama’s share is not what we are talking about.

 

DISPLACEMENT WOES Project: Proposed on Godavari river and named after the closest town in West Godavari district Estimated cost: Rs 20,000 crore Conceived: 50 years back Villages to be submerged: 300 plus Population to be displaced: Over two lakhs Important Landmarks to be submerged: Bhadrachalam temple, parts of Papikonda sanctuary Estimated Irrigation facility: 7.2 lakh acres

FUTURE TENSE: Children of the school, which is likely to be submerged once the Polavaram Dam is ready, wonder what awaits them  Publication: Times Of India Hyderabad;  Date: Mar 21, 2007;  Section: Times City;  Page Number:2