Patkar again asks PM to intervene, stop construction of Dam

New Delhi, May 1 (UNI) Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar today once again appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to use his constitutional and legal authority to stop the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam and ''save'' the lives of scores of people from being affected by the project.

''Weakness of democracy has been displayed by institution after institution in our case. The Prime Minister has not intervned... the Supreme Court has once again delayed the hearing by a week. But we will wait and watch,'' Ms Patkar told a media conference after the Apex court posted till May 7 the next hearing on the construction of the dam.

''The Prime Minister did not respond to out appeal.... His attitude has been apathetic and as some response to our requests just announced one more committee,'' she added.

She said the 2000 Supreme Court verdict had authorised the Prime Minister to intervene in the dispute but he had ''not done a thing''.

''The UPA is facing a dispute within over the construction of the Dam... the Prime Minister is not trusting his own Group of Ministers (GOM). Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were at dispute about the project but are now the toeing the lines of respective ruling parties,'' she added.

The NBA leader, who broke a 21-day fast on April 17 to stop the dam construction, said delay in the ruling of the Supreme Court hearing will further risk the lines of the tribals and farmers.

Ms Patkar said the NBA was not against development but was fighting for the welfare of the affected-people.

She said the Government cannot compensate for the environmental, social and cultural damage the project will cause and listed several specific problems with the rehabilitation process.

The NBA leader claimed that the government's agenda seemed to decrease peoples' entitlement rights as much as possible.

''The affected people are being intimidated to settle for cash compensation instead of the land allotment and widows are not being considered for settlement,'' she added.

The Surveys that were carried for entitlement benefits were undertaken in ''hurry'' and have ''huge discrepancies'', she said.

The livelihood of those involved in non-agricultural occupation was not taken into account and people who have no titles to land and self owned homes have been completely left outof the list of displaced people.

She said the situation in the Tribal areas was of complete neglect and they were being cheated out of their ancestral land and allotted uncultivable land.

On April 29, the NBA made public its ''Pol Kholo Yatra' report which said Madhya Pradesh Government's claim about rehabilitation of all outsees in the state was ''entirely untrue''.

The NBA said the Madhya Pradesh government's affidavit in the Apex Court that relief and rehabilitation of all the people was complete in the state is replete with ''white lies''.

''Thousands of people are displaced without any alternative we visited 12 villages in MP and Nandurbar district in Maharashtra.

The MP government has completely misled the Supreme Court on rehabilitation,'' it said.

While hearing the NBA PIL on April 17, the Supreme Court had refused to stay the construction of the dam, but warned that it relief and rehabilitation were not adequate it will order otherwise.

On the same day, Ms Patkar, who was on a 21-day fast to protest against raising the dam's height and demanding that the construction of the dam be stopped and adequate rehabilitation given to the outsees, called off a month-long agitation.

She had appealed to the Prime Minister to use his constitutional authority and stop the construction.

As part of the efforts to persuade her to call off her fast and the NBA to end its agitation, Dr Singh had dispatched a ministerial team, headed by Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, to Madhya Pradesh to assess the rehabilitation work.

The Prime Minister subsequently convened a meeting of the Review Committee of the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) after the GoM submitted its report, observing that rehabilitation work by the Madhya Pradesh government was not adequate.

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