From Renuka to Pong to Bhakra, dam evictees and dam-affected people in Himachal Pradesh have been struggling for justice | Bharat Dogra

According to recent reports the people being displaced by the Renuka dam in Himachal Pradesh have demanded alternative sites for their rehabilitation as most of the land earlier provided for their rehabilitation has been washed away or suffered harm in recent torrential rains. This land is located in Sirmaur district.

The dam is an approximately INR 7000 crore project which envisages the construction of a 148 metre high rock-fill dam on the Giri river in Sirmaur district.

According to a recent report in The Tribune by Ambika Sharma (September 4), titled ‘Renuka dam oustees seek better rehab deal’), “As many as 25 panchayats, comprising 41 villages and 7,000 people, will be affected by the project, while 346 families have been rendered homeless.†People have demanded that those living very close to the danger mark and on forest land should also get the recognition of displaced families for proper compensation.

On September 3/4, the evictees of Renuka dam, under the banner of their struggle commit or Jan Sangharsh Samiti (JSS) held a meeting and a protest march at Renukaji.

These problems of the displaced people at an early stage of the construction of Renuka dam have opened up the wounds of the displaced people of dams like Pong and Bhakra who had to sufferer a lot for decades to get justice.

It was over 50 years back that over 20,000 families living in villages of Kangra region were asked to leave their beautiful settlements to make way for Pong Dam constructed on Beas river in Himachal Pradesh. The land here was so fertile that it produced bountiful diverse crops without using any chemical fertilizers and pesticides. So people were very, very reluctant to leave their villages.

What made their predicament worse was that the resettlement offered to them was in distant Rajasthan. A lot of promises were made that they would get irrigated land and all facilities. Finally, they left, sadly and slowly.

According to reports received just about a year back, after more than 50 years have passed the second generation of the displaced people was still struggling for proper rehabilitation!

A delegation of their organization, the Pong Bandh Visthapit Samiti ( the Pong Dam Evictees Committee) met the authorities to seek redress of their grievances. A press note issued by them subsequently explained that 20,772 families were displaced while only 16,352 were found eligible for the allotment of land. However, only about 5000 have been rehabilitated properly till date (about a year back).

This data is slightly different in some other reports but what is common in most of the reports on the plight of these displaced people is that a very significant percentage of them have not been rehabilitated yet.

Although the original idea was that the irrigation water of the canals of this project will bring under cultivation land in the Ganganagar region of Rajasthan which will be given to these displaced families. However, with the availability of water land values shot up and there were encroachments by powerful persons. In these conditions it was difficult for newcomers from hilly areas to occupy and cultivate land. Several of them were reduced to merely complaining about encroachments, while others were allotted land instead in the more remote desert areas of Jaisalmer which were devoid of the most basic facilities. What is more how could people used to the cold weather of Himachal Pradesh survive in the extreme heat of the Thar desert? The net result was that many families were unable to settle down at new places or to cultivate the land allotted to them or both.

This situation in turn led to prolonged legal cases and one can imagine to what extent those who had been evicted from their land and livelihoods could fight legal cases. After some time this took the form of a Himachal versus Rajasthan dispute as Rajasthan was alleged to have not fulfilled its part of the dam and canal related agreement in terms of satisfactory rehabilitation of people. Another strong view emerged that if the Rajasthan government is unable to settle the displaced households in a satisfactory way, then it should pay the costs of the satisfactory rehabilitation within Himachal. News of committee meetings and legal cases still appear from time to time even though over five decades have passed since the people were displaced. Ideally satisfactory rehabilitation should have been completed in about five years.

What is even more surprising is that as per news appearing from time to time, even the satisfactory rehabilitation of the people displaced by the most publicized Bhakra Dam project has not been completed yet, even though this displacement took place a few years before the Pong dam displacement.

Hence there is a strong need for a well-coordinated effort to complete the delayed and inadequate rehabilitation efforts of all dam projects.

Then there is also the issue of people who were not displaced by dams but are frequently endangered by excessive release of water from some dams. In recent years several reports of the serious threats faced by them have appeared in media. Safety for them should be ensured. It is now belatedly realized that while dams are publicized for flood-protection benefits, but in several ways and for many people flood risks have increased due to them.

While so many dams have been constructed in Himachal Pradesh, there are frequent reports of electricity cuts and disruption of the supply of drinking water. If there are problems during lean season flows, there are also problems during heavy rainfall due to excessive silt deposition.

At the same time, heavy construction work and wrong rubble disposal policies have harmed the environment and rivers and increased the risk of landslides and floods.

Renuka dam proposes to meet the water supply needs of a distant city like Delhi, but so much can be done within Delhi to increase water harvesting and revive water bodies, while also preventing wastage of water. Why endanger Himalayan ecology when solutions closer to home are available?

(Author: Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Man over Machine, A Day in 2071 and India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food)