Villagers don`t mind moving
Mangleya Kaleya Paora wanted to be heard. So he swam across the Jharkal river to Kharey Bhaadal village in western Madhya Pradesh (MP). Kharey Bhaadal falls bang in the middle of the submergence area of the Narmada dam. On the other side of the river is the village of Bhaadal in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra. Paora and other villagers have not been rehabilitated. They have moved their houses up the hill on which their village is situated and cultivate whatever slivers of land are left.
Paora says he and others had been offered land in Gopalpur, some distance away. "But when we went to see the land allotted to us, we found it was already encroached on. And we don't want any monetary compensation because we want what we lost.'
Kharey Bhaadal has a similar story. Of the approximately 90 project-affected families in the village, 30 were given land in Rabadighati in Maheshwar tehsil . But when villagers went to survey the land they received, they found it already occupied. But even going by the details available in MP provided in the affidavit it filed in the Supreme Court on April 11, 2000, the land in Rabadighati is not even cultivable. The affidavit says that 34.3 hectares (ha) are available in Rabadighati, of which 5 ha are encroached and 19.4 ha are unsuitable for agriculture. Going by the 2 ha per family stipulation, 30 families will need a minimum of 60 ha of cultivable, irrigated land. All that is available is 10 ha. That isn't all: six families from Pichodi and two from Avalda have been given the same land in Rabadighati.
Kharey Bhaadal is about 70 km by road and half an hour by a boat from the nearest town of Badwani. Kakrana, another village in the rehabilitation list, is the last stop before the submergence area starts. But the village is right where it was.
From Kakrana to Badwani, the narrow dirt road is interspersed by tiny hamlets and bustling trade centres like Kalwat, Dahi and Khapad-Khera. Just before Khapad-Khera is a vast, bare stretch of land, and a few electric poles. This is the rehabilitation site of Nisarpur, Dhar district