But here is the real bad news: International researchers in this field claim that this is a gross under-estimate!!

India’s report card: Poor
In India, like most other countries in the world, it is impossible to count the actual number of people who have become pau-pers because the land beneath them have dried up. Like I have already told you, every year, thousands leave home to look for
— not only new shelters, but new livelihoods. Not because they choose to do so, but because they are forced to.

However, we can still gauge the role that man-made constructions—dams, roadways, urban infrastructure projects, national parks and sanctuaries, or industrial plants, even tourist resorts — have played in increasing the number of homeless in our country. Here take a look:

• During the British Raj, the first state-owned Yamuna canal system, constructed in 1789, began the process of develop-ment-related displacement in India;

• The construction of the Upper Anicut dam on River Cauvery,in 1800, also led to large scale involuntary displacement;

• In 1920, 11,000 people were displaced when Tata Power Company built a dam in Mulshi Peta near Pune, Maharashtra;

• The era of big dams began with Mettur on the Cauvery in 1930;

• By 1950, about 100 major dams eating up thousands hectares had come up. Bhakra-Nangal in Punjab and Hirakud in Orissa, touted as symbols of progress had displaced innumerable communities—some time more than once! As per experts, from 1951 to 1990 a total of 210 lakh people have been displaced by dams, mines, industries and wildlife sanctuaries. And here we are not even beginning to count the more recent mega projects — the Narmada, for instance!

Cast out and no place to go…
If you think this is shocking, let me share a more scary fact with you. The record of rehabilitation of the these oustees everywhere is even poorer. One example: Of the 2,108 families displaced from Una and Bilaspur districts of Himachal Pradesh, by the Bhakra Nangal project, only 750 have been resettled.

There is more. The recently published report of the Tiger Task Force says that from the early 1970s till mid-2005, 80 villages and 2,904 families displaced from different tiger reserves have been relocated.

But roughly 1,500 villages within the 28 reserves and about 65,000 families — are yet to be resettled!!!

Next page

1 2 3 4 5