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This bypoll, HP politicians remain mum on Pong Dam oustees’ persisting troubles
Experts say with unemployment and inflation a major poll plank during the polls, the persisting issue of the oustees has been swept under the carpet in the face other pressing issues
Breaking from a five-decade tradition of offering hollow promises and quiet sympathy, politicians campaigning for the Fatehpur bypoll have remained uncharacteristically mum on the hot-button issue of providing rehabilitation and compensation to those ousted from the Pong Dam area in Kangra after a hydroelectric project was setup on their land.
Experts say with unemployment and inflation a major poll plank during the polls, the persisting issue of the oustees has been swept under the carpet in the face other pressing issues. Admitting that their was little talk on the long-pending issue, Congress legislator and Fatehpur bypoll in-charge Rajinder Singh Rana said, “Rehabilitation of the displaced people comes up in every session of the state assembly. However, this time the focus is on other pressing issues such as inflation and unemployment. There is anger among the people against the anti-people policies of the state and Centre.”
Subhash Mehra, an oustee and senior journalist with a national Hindi daily, agrees. “It is a matter of survival. People understand that they can continue the fight only if they survive. Most locals are poor farmers and are reeling under soaring prices of essential commodities such as pulses and edible oil and they will vote on these issues,” said Mehra.
BJP candidate Baldev Thakur, however, blamed the Congress for the troubles plaguing the Pong Dam oustees. “For 13 years, Congress legislator represented the constituency, but failed to raise the voice of oustees,” said Thakur.
“If elected, I promise to take up their issue at every possible platform,” he said, adding that the ruling BJP government was also making sincere efforts to resettle displaced families.
Dam of sorrow
Fifty years have passed since over 20,000 families living in Kangra were uprooted from their land for the construction of the Pong hydroelectric power project that ushered a new era of prosperity in the arid Rajasthan.
Raman Kumar, 26, a Pong Dam oustee said his grandfather gave up 10 acres of fertile land for the Pong Dam project. “I was not even born then. All my life I have seen my family struggling to get compensation and rehabilitation,” says Kumar whose family lives on a tiny island, Kuther, which ironically has neither electricity nor a school.
Except for carrying out seasonal farming on the banks of the Pong Lake when the water recedes every winter, Kumar has no other means of earning a livelihood.
“We are tired of all this. Politicians make promises only to break them. Now, it hardly matters now if it is an election issue or not for, we know that this battle will not end soon and we have to fight it on our own,” he said.
Long-drawn battle
The construction of the dam started in 1961 on the Beas river near Pong village in Kangra district (then a part of Punjab), so that waters from its reservoir could be taken to the desert lands of Rajasthan and feed an extensive network of canal irrigation systems.
A total area of 75,000 acres, spread over 94 villages in Nurpur and Dehra tehsil, was acquired for the reservoir. Of the acquired 339 tikkas (revenue estates), 223 were submerged fully and 116 partially, displacing 20,722 families and 1.5 lakh people. The submerged area was the most fertile in Kangra district and was called Haldoon Valley (which means granary) .
The displaced people also did not get adequate compensation. Initially, the price was fixed at ₹140 per kanal, which was raised to ₹650 per kanal in 1965 and later to ₹1,000. The central government approached the Supreme Court, and in 1983 the price was revised to ₹750 per canal leaving the displaced people in a quandary. Most of them had already received compensation at the rate of ₹1,000 per kanal and the government had ordered recovery of the differential amount of ₹ 250.
