NBA meets President again, with a 'final' memorandum

New Delhi, May 17 (UNI) A Narmada Bachao Andolan delegation led by Medha Patkar called on President A P J Abdul Kalam once again today, seeking his immediate intervention to stop work on the Sardar Sarovar Project until thousands of people facing the threat of displacement because of it are resettled.

''We gave him a final memorandum, saying we expect his urgent intervention. 'Final' because he did not intervene after we met him the last time in March,'' Ms Patkar told reporters here, reiterating that the fundamental right to life and liberty of tribals was under threat in the Narmada Valley because of the Government move to increase the dam height to 121.92 metres.

According to her, villagers from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra informed the President that the V K Shunglu Committee formed by the Prime Minister would be able to prepare merely a ''post-mortem'' since its report is expected by the time a rising Narmada has already devoured the Valley and its villages.

Since the President had in the past expressed willingness to visit Narmada Valley, the NBA side asked him to speed up his visit.

''We requested him to come to the Valley before monsoon since this could be the last time to see it''.

The NBA delegation also met Mr Shunglu demanding that he should visit the Narmada Valley at the earliest and carry out his work in a transparent manner by making clear the schedule of visit of the Committee under him.

It talked about corruption rampant at the level of patwari and revenue officials with regard to rehabilitation work, the ''faulty'' methodology being adopted in identifying the project-affected people and the government's poor record on the rehabilitation and resettlement front.

''The Prime Minister through his non-interventionist role and the Supreme Court by violating its own previous orders have facilitated massive corruption, cheating and betrayal of the people of Narmada Valley,'' Ms Patkar maintained.

In a letter to the Oversight Group, the NBA protested that it was asked to assess the status of rehabilitation of project-affected families only in Madhya Pradesh while the situation of rehabilitation of the SSP-affected in Maharashtra and Gujarat also needed to be looked into.

The NBA has declared May 26 as a Day of National Action against violence, injustice, displacement and forced evictions in the name of development, she informed.

Organisations supporting the NBA are planning to carry out signature campaigns against the Supreme Court decision not to stop work on the dam, organise demonstrations outside Congress party offices, rally calling for immediate halt of construction of the dam and an end to displacement and forced eviction around the country.

Meanwhile, the Convention of the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) in Bangalore from May 30 to June one will discuss displacement and other issues of concern to people's movements and strive for greater solidarity and more focused and long-term strategies across movements, activists in the NAPM said.

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