1km dam 85% complete, 100% illegal

DNA has been reporting on the illegal construction of a dam on the Kalu river in Thane district’s Murbad tehsil. But what the same contractor, FA Enterprises, has done on the Balganga river in Pen, in the neighbouring Raigad district, is stunning in its supreme contempt for the laws of the land.

Look at the picture accompanying this report. This more than a kilometre long, 40.15 m high dam on the Balganga river is a monument to the state’s tradition of illegal, unnecessary dam-building: this nearly complete dam violates more than eight Acts related to land acquisition, rehabilitation, and forest, wildlife and biodiversity conservation.

Like in every project undertaken for the sole benefit of the contractor lobby, here too, the irrigation department has ignored protests by the 8,000 plus villagers belonging to the 13 villages which face submergence.

The villagers have been protesting against the dam since August 2009. But the several demonstrations, sit-ins, and confrontations only resulted in the authorities speeding up a project that will submerge 1,240 hectares of land (602 hectares of paddy fields and 265 of forest land). The idea, obviously, is to present the finished dam as a fait accompli and fob off the villagers with some compensation.

But what has left the villagers shocked is the impunity with which work continues despite sharp observations by Justices D K Deshmukh and Anup Mohta of the Bombay high court, on how such work can be commenced at all without any procedure for land acquisition and rehabilitation being followed.

“We have orders to complete the dam as fast as possible and have told the contractor that it should be ready by the monsoon this year,” said RC Rithe, the irrigation department’s Raigad division executive engineer. “At a meeting called by the deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar last week, minister for water resources Sunil Tatkare ordered officials to tell people that compensation would be hiked, thereby hopefully making it easier for all the procedures to be completed before the next court hearing.” Rithe’s deputy, sectional engineer Vijay Kasat said, “If we show that we have completed all the procedures, and point out to the court the amount of public money already spent on the project, it will not rule against the dam. And this will take care of all the opposition to the dam.”
Kasat, as a matter of fact, defended the work already completed as “allied works.” According to him, “unless the actual river gorge is filled, it does not amount to building the dam. That we will do when all the 18 NOCs are obtained.” The officers also defended their decision to go ahead with the work. “This is not some privately built dam. This is all government work and you should know that the permissions will come eventually.”

Such talk should come as little consolation to the sarpanch of Varsai, Bhaskar Dhundar, 46, who is a petitioner in the case against the dam. “We have consistently opposed the dam but the government has, on the one hand, continued building it, and on the other, kept enticing people with increased compensation to break their unity. If the dam isn’t stopped, we will lose everything in the monsoon.”

Surekha Dalvi of the Shramik Kranti Sanghatan, which is working closely with the locals on the issue said, “Even at this stage, the government can, and should, step back, dismantle the wall and let nature take over. Just because someone’s spent a fortune to buy a medicine, will they insist it be administered even after if it is discovered to be life-threatening?”  

Repeated attempts to speak to the managing director of FA Enterprises, Fateh Mohammed Khatri drew a blank.