Interlinking Rivers,
I just read a news item, an article written in The Hindu by Gargi Parsai (dated Aug 23rd 2005) which said that the Ken-Betwa link is estimated to submerge 900 villages!
I would hate to go into numbers as numbers can be and are almost always manipulated and policies, justified on the basis of these manipulated numbers (after all we are a democracy). However I am tempted to try my hand at this number game. Even if we consider that each of the other 30 proposed links will displace just 30% of the people being displaced by this project, the total figure of the displaced comes to 436,500. The interlinking project proposes to destroy the lives and livelihoods of 436,500 human beings at least (I would tend to believe that the real figure would be more than two times of this one). Even with highly conservative numbers, the picture is quite horrendous, and I wonder what kind of democracy is this that allows us to belittle the lives of thousands of people.

The Madhya Pradesh Government recently declared that the state does not have enough land to rehabilitate people displaced by the Sardar Sarovar projects. So how does it expect to take care of this new batch of 50,000 people?
Probably the government suddenly remembered about the piece of land it had forgetfully stashed away in some pocket! And maybe the displaced, will not complain about having to give up everything they have, as they might just be resettled in villages with “Information kiosks” and Mr. Presidents Vision 2020 will be fulfilled!

It has repeatedly been brought to pubic notice by many writers/activists/researchers that, in the “developed world”, dam building is being discouraged and opposed very strongly. There have been no new mega hydro projects in the United States for the last 20 years. The European countries have been amongst the first to stop dam building. Micro hydro is being encouraged everywhere. The dam industry after being thrown out of the “developed world” ruined the eco systems in South America. The anti-dam movement there is phenomenal and has been finally successful in discouraging governments from spending welfare money on these mega blunders. Why then, is the Indian Government holding on to the argument that the Inter-Linking project and big dams are the solutions to all our troubles? Has the dam experiences in India been any different? It has not. Why then are they still considered temples of modern India?

People who argue for those being displaced by these dams are disregarded by urbanites as being "tree-huggers" and "anti-development traitors". According to those sitting in comfortable apartments in Bombay with water at the turn of a tap, those displaced can be sacrificed as collateral damage because they are far away in some valley and they dont matter... after all they don’t contribute to India's "growing economy".
But now, those "tree huggers" and "anti-development traitors" are coming up with "scientific reasons" for not building the dam. It is a "scientific" arguement that a dam cannot provide drinking water, irrigational water and electricity all at the same time. The water levels need to be different for all three things to be possible together. Oh!.. Did we not think of this while calculating "the cost-benefit ratio". It might have increased the number so unreasonably that we decided to neglect this little detail, just as we decided to neglect that little cost of resettlement.

Only the Ken-Betwa report compiled by the task force has been made public, and even to "untrained" eyes the report is seriously lacking. The data on which the conclusions are based is not mentioned. The things that matter are mentioned qualitatively with no numbers to support them. An example: "Villages along the way (along the canal) will be supplied with water". How many villages lie along the canal is not mentioned. Whether these villages need water or they already have enough is also not mentioned.

Big projects are susceptible to big mistakes! Have we not learned from past mistakes to keep making them over and over again at the cost of the same people... the people who dont matter?

-Tejal Kanitkar