30 years ago, another project & still no relief

An RTI application has exposed the state’s track record on rehabilitation of people displaced more than 30 years ago due to the Damodar Valley project. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Aug 24, 2008, 23:54:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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At the time when the West Bengal government is trying to save Tata’s Nano car project in Singur, an RTI application has exposed the state’s track record on rehabilitation of people displaced more than 30 years ago due to the Damodar Valley project.

Rafique Ansari’s Right to Information application exemplifies story of thousands of oustees of abject poverty from being landlords and their fight for their rightful claim. Their land was taken over by the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) in the 1950s for constructing a power plant.

Once an owner of 23 acres of land acquired for the project in 1950s, Ansari, a disabled, is now a below poverty line card-holder and does not have money to send his son for higher education. The Central Information Commission, which was hearing his plea for denial of justice, estimated that he would have earned monthly income of Rs 48,000 from the land taken away for the project. His present monthly income is less than Rs 2,000.

Ansari blamed DVC for his present state, claiming that proper rehabilitation never took place and he did not get a job either — like other disabled people in 1978. “I could not get the promised job as I could not pay bribe to the officials of the corporation. Those below me on the disability list were given jobs,” Ansari told CIC. The DVC, however, refuted his claim, saying he would not have got job as per the eligibility criteria fixed.

Making a stinging observation on the rehabilitation package, Information Commissioner MM Ansari said the corporation has failed in its corporate social responsibility. “While DVC may have made significant contributions to the process of development of infrastructure, it has also contributed to marginalisation of the displaced persons, who sacrificed their land for the project,” he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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