It has been 15 years since Khajan Singh’s land went under water. A single crop earlier could have feed him and his family for two long years. But today, they are a victim of dire hunger and unmitigated malnutrition.
Khajan is from Aanjanwada village of Alirajpur district in Madhya Pradesh. It is one of the 15 villages been affected in Alirajpur due to the submergence caused by the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project (SSP). The only way to reach this community is by a boat from the nearest small town.
SSP is one of the five largest and controversial dam construction projects in India. According to the official figures, 193 villages in the state will be submerged when SSP is at its full height of 138.68 metres. Out of the 193 displaced villages, 15 villages are in Alirajpur district.
In Aanjanwada, Khajan and other villagers are totally dependent on government schemes. They do not have livelihood options other than those provided by the schemes. The implementation of these, however, are not worth writing home about either.
Says Dhaniya Patel, a village elder, “… the government thinks that we are enjoying ourselves out here. It is for you to see whether we are enjoying ourselves or starving. The supply through the public distribution system (PDS) has been irregular since submergence. The villagers can afford to eat only once a day so as to save food and make it the food grains last longer.”
A recent fact-finding team to Aanjanwada and Bhitada in south-western Madhya Pradesh in May found how the current model of development is being implemented: at the expense of self-dependence, sovereignty, and financial independence of communities. “This rough-shod top-down model of development has enslaved communities and delivered them to the doorstep of hunger, starvation and food insecurity. Communities that were once self-dependent and sovereign, are today dependent on benefits of government schemes. What is being done is startlingly well-planned and equally well executed, so that society becomes a colony of the State,” the team said in its damning report ‘Valley of Food Insecurity and Chronic Hunger’.
The report has been co-authored by Sachin Jain, Supreme Court's State Advisor to the Right to Food Commissioners' Office; Rolly Shivhare, Madhukar and Soumitra Roy, researchers associated with Bhopal-based Vikas Samvad.
The team found that families affected by submergence in these villages live with hunger for four months in a year – the ration that they get from the government can be stretched to only eight months. There is a deficit of 65 per cent in need and supply of nutritious ration.
The state administration, on the other hand, in its report has claimed that residents affected by the project have been compensated. It also claims that the residents living in the village are living there since they are against the project. “This argument though does not make any sense in itself. In fact, those living in the villages are provided no compensation and have not received anything from the government. Since they have no place else to go, they continue living there. The rehabilitation process has proved to be replete with flaws in planning and implementation. Despite this, the residents of the village still expect the government to support them.”
Women and children are the worst affected. There is an Anganwadi centre in the village, but most of it remains on paper and government records and reports. The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is hardly implemented. Children are denied supplementary nutrition and their growth is not monitored. Services to be provided through the ICDS are literally nonexistent in the villages of the district. Similarly, pregnant and lactating women are deprived the benefits due through ICDS. Visits by an auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) and other health workers is irregular, and complete immunisation has not happened in the villages. Due to this, prenatal check-ups of women have not been conducted. In case of any medical emergency, women have to travel to Kakrana, which is 12 km from the village. It takes about two hours to traverse the distance. The people have to spend more in hiring a private transport, as there is no public transport facility available in the area.
There are 27 families in Aanjanwada who do not have job cards. They have applied for these many times, but to no avail. With no job cards, they are unable to find work through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. For those who found jobs somehow, the payment of wages in many cases have been pending for long.
Jain gives the backdrop to the visit, “The reference of this case is PUCL Vs Union of India and Others - 196/2001. The Supreme Court had appointed two commissioners (who are known as Commissioners to the Supreme Court in the Right to Food Case) to monitor the implementation of its orders and the situation of hunger. The SC commissioners submit their reports to the court on a regular basis, and request it to take note of them in their orders. Based on these reports the Supreme Court takes various initiatives.
“Primarily, the commissioners take up such issues with the Chief Secretaries of the respective states and instruct them to take appropriate measures. The Supreme Court has also given powers to commissioners to appoint State Advisors to work with the same responsibilities.
“In my capacity as State Advisor to the SC Commissioners, I took note of this issue and did a rapid study. I shared my recommendations with the district administration on May 18, 2011, but did not hear from them for about two months. Then I submitted my report to the Commissioners for their intervention. Only last week I received a detailed response from the district administration. In most cases, they have accepted that there are problems. Yet they tried to justify saying we have done their settlements.”
The Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) has in its 2008-09 report claimed that all families affected by the submergence had been rehabilitated. Facts say otherwise.
Food security in itself is not all – many families are caught in a vicious debt cycle. The debts usually range in the Rs 7,000-10,000 bracket; most have borrowed for weddings, medicines or food. Tribals here were once known for their silver jewellery, but these have been lost to debtors. Local moneylenders from Alirajpur give them the money at 36 per cent interest in return for the silverware as deposits. Without security deposits, the interest rate is 60 per cent.
But salvation, for Khajan and other villagers, is not a report away.
