om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

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Women’s Alienation
meet industrial demand especially during the summer months, taking into consideration the
drinking water needs of Raigarh town. In 1997, a state-level committee formed to assess
the requirements of water for power and industrial projects in Madhya Pradesh granted
permission to the company to build intake wells and a stop dam for consumption of 35,400
cubic metres of water per day.
Over the years, the extraction of water by the Jindal Group has had severe repercussions
on the local population. Almost 250 families dependent on fishing in the Kelu have lost
their only source of livelihood due to the construction of a stop dam that has drastically
reduced their fish catch. The company’s intake well at Bonda Tikra, from where water
is drawn and supplied to the plant through a one-metre-thick pipeline, has directly
affected water supply for irrigation purposes in nearby Gudgahan village. Farmers in
this village had earlier mortgaged their lands for a loan to start an irrigation scheme that
subsequently failed due to inadequate water; most of the water was being drawn by the
steel plant. Besides using water from the river, the company has illegally diverted the
Kokadi Talai irrigation canal to suit its own ends. It is also using water from the Tipakhol
dam, depriving many farmers of irrigation water.
Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. (JSPL) proposes to build a dam for a 1,000 MW hydel power
project in Rabo, a village near Kurkut in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh. The dam is part of
extension of the Jindal Industrial Project and will cater to the needs of power to the units
of Jindal. The dam will submerge over 1000 acres of land and displace over 10,000 people.
Rabo village is the nearest to the proposed dam. Apart from Rabo village, Gadgaon,
Chharatangar, Dokarmuda, Dehridih, Vilaskhat, Vilaskhar, Timaudih, Gudgud, Amapali
and Bachgawan villages would be affected. The protest to the dam started in August 2004
and since then there have been a series of demonstrations.
On January 29, 2005, the State Pollution Control Board organised a public hearing for
environmental clearance for the proposed expansion of JSPL’s existing steel plant in Patrapali,
Raigarh. The hearing was conducted as a procedural formality by the local administration and
District Pollution Control Board. Yet it turned out to be an historical one with almost 4,000
local people from Raigarh turning up to register their complaints and protest the expansion on
the one hand, and the blatant manner in which the district administration and the Pollution
Control Board violated the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF’s) guidelines on public
hearings. In 1994, when site markings started, people from six villages along the banks
of the Kurkut came together under the banner of the Majdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti to
protest against the dam’s construction. They sent appeals to the district administration, water
resource department, chief secretary, Chhattisgarh, Prime Minister of India, National Human
Rights Commission, SC/ST Commission and the MoEF, until finally, the district administration
ordered a stay on construction. The protestors also initiated direct people’s action by taking
turns guarding the site and preventing further construction activity.