Maan oustees return home

Villagers of the Maan dam area in the Narmada valley in Madhya Pradesh have been allowed to return to their homes after they were forcibly evicted by police more than 10 days back.

Their homecoming is hardly a relief as around 150 villagers of Khedi Balwadi have been holding demonstration in front of the collector's office in Dhar, district headquarters, demanding their household and personal belongings that were taken away on July 20 be returned.

They were taken away by the state administration on the grounds that the Narmada River would rise and submerge their homes though the river remains almost dry due to lack of rains. The 17 villages that would be affected if the dam waters were to rise have been demanding a justifiable compensation for which a task force has been set up to look into their rehabilitation.

The harassed villagers, mostly Adivasi women and children, after being taken away by the police to camps 45 km and 75 km away, managed to escape and lodge a complaint to the officials of the Grievances Redressal Authority (GRA). Maan dam is under completion on one of the tributaries of the Narmada and is one of the 30 small dams.

Ravindra Sharma, chairman of the GRA, passed an order on July 30 stating that the oustees must be allowed to return to their homes and that the district administration must assist them in bringing back their household belongings and foodgrains.

The order also states that the belongings may be kept in temporary sheds and that the oustees can live in their houses, unless there is threat of submergence.

The GRA had objected to the police action in the Maan dam affected villages and ordered that the police force in the village be immediately withdrawn. The GRA has also stated that other villages affected by the dam must not be evicted.

The past two weeks have been a traumatic experience for the villagers when they were snatched by the police, dumped into vehicles and taken away to camps. The women and children escaped and managed to reach Indore to stage a protest and then went to Bhopal, the state capital, to give a written complaint to the GRA.