Once again, the Indian government has been compelled to suspend work on the Maheshwar dam over the Narmada River in central India. Under pressure from civil society groups, that organised a sit-down for close to three weeks in May, the central Ministry of Forests and Environment ordered the state government of Madhya Pradesh, where the project is located, to halt work until project authorities have complied with conditions laid down for the rehabilitation of all people who stand to lose their lands, livelihoods or homes.

Work on the dam project, India’s first private hydel project, has mostly been on hold since it started in 1997. Only 14 per cent of the construction was completed, according to a 2002 monitoring report by the forest ministry. A further suspension thereafter, that lasted up to early this year, has meant that 80 per cent of the work still needs to be done, while project costs have risen to nearly five times the original estimate of about $1 billion in 1994.

Charges of financial irregularities and loan defaults have dogged the main promoter, Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation. In addition, there have been no signs of rehabilitation for 8,000 families spread over 61 villages. About 5,000 hectares of land will be submerged by the project. This includes about 1,000 hec-tares of agricultural land.

With the project now in cold storage, activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) say that it is still possible to save nearly 100,000 people from displacement. Opposition to the dam has only snowballed over the last nine years. As a result, several foreign investors have backed out of the project. These include Bechtel in 1997, the German companies Bayernwerk and VEW Energie in 1999, and Ogden (US) in 2000. This year, the project was restarted and efforts were being made to raise finds on the basis of a guarantee proposed by the Power Finance Corporation (PFC).

Chittarupa Palit, a NBA member, points out that what is “most disturbing from the point of view of people in the submergence zone is that the land identified by the government for rehabilitation simply doesn’t exist. This includes land located between the submergence villages and the river, which will be submerged even earlier. Then there is other private land which has not been acquired or purchased yet.” The NBA’s misgivings were confirmed recently when an application under the right to information law revealed that the forests ministry could not trace the files in the Maheshwar dam case.

Early May, over 300 farmers and fisherfolk from affected villages came to Delhi to express solidarity with opponents of the Sardar Sarovar project, the biggest dam that is under construction over the Narmada River, and to protest against the environmental clearance to the Maheshwar dam. They demanded that the clearance be withdrawn. “This is clearly a project which has too many problems and too few benefits. We are determined to stop it,” Dinesh, a young man from Nimad, said with a sense of finality.

Now, the forests ministry has also aired its misgivings. In a letter dated June 4 to the MP government it ordered the work “suspended with immediate effect till a comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation plan is submitted by the project authorities and the same

is found to be implementable by the Monitoring Committee”. — IPS