Kakinada: Even as the State Government is going ahead with the mega Polavaram project on River Godavari, people displaced by it, both tribal and non-tribal, have been facing all sorts of problems in getting compensation and resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) package. Their lives have now become miserable.
Polavaram project has become a curse on them, even though it is a blessing for the rest of the state. The officials are subjecting displaced people to all sorts of hardships.
Some people, with names in the survey list, are being denied compensation or resettlement and rehabilitation package even though they had been living in the tribal mandals for years, mostly in the cases of youths who have completed 18 years of age.
The temporary migrated people are also being denied compensation in the name of surveys. The people in the Agency area, in particular Devipatnam mandal, of East Godavari where the Polavaram project works are being expedited felt that they were being cheated, insulted and pushed to insecurity by the government.
Their allegation is that the government is changing procedures frequently and pushing the people into trouble and making them lose their mental peace in the process.
According to sources, the government had issued a notification in 2006 and passed awards in the year 2008. The compensation has been given to some of the victims in the year 2017. During these years, many officials conducted surveys, Grama Sabhas as per PESA Act and recorded the names of the victims, including youths who have completed 18 years of age.
“When the officials conducted Grama Sabhas, they took all the names of the victims and also stated that the youths, both boys and girls, completed 18 years, and whether they are not married or married, they would be given resettlement and rehabilitation package. But, many of the names have been deleted and we would fight for the cause,” Devipatnam vice chairman P. Sivarama Krishna said.
He, along with the victims, are staging different kinds of demonstrations to bring to the government’s notice their plight. He said that when Gandham Chandrudu was the Sub-Collector, he was trying to give maximum justice to the victims. But, later, the officials cheated them.
Indian Lawyers’ Associ-ation executive member Inapurapu Suryanar-ayana said that the revenue officials wanted to apply their own agenda in the matter of giving R&R packages and compensation. He said that the officials frequently told that they have taken the notification date to decide the cut-off date for 18 years of age, for giving R&R package.
But, though the process was completed by the year 2008, the compensation or R&R package issues have not be paid even today, in most of the cases.
So, as per the High Court directive, though the girls were married, they should be allotted sites under R&R package. According to new Land Acquisition Act-2013, the age of 18 years should be fixed for both boys and girls, with the completion of R&R and other compensations. Suryanarayana said that the officials have not paid attention to the welfare or the lives of the tribal and non-tribal victims of the project.
