Daltonganj, Nov. 22: Mandal dam ousters are out looking for alternative land to begin their second innings of life afresh. The Kutkoo Doob Chhetra Sangharsh Morcha said that it is working out for finding alternative land for the villages which will get submerged once the four sluice gates installed at the Mandal dam open, whose height has been scaled down to 341 meters from 361 meters.
Sources said people of 11 villages sat on November 19 at Kutkoo to discuss where to go and settle once their displacement takes place on account of the submergence of their villages.
A senior civil society activist and chief of the Kutkoo Doob Chhetra Sangharsh Morcha, Pratap Tirkey, said that people of 3 villages of Latehar namely Meral, Tanwai and Nawar Nago took part in this meeting. The remaining 8 villages were of the Garhwa district namely Kutku, Sanya, Chemo Chapiya, Khoora and others.
The need to find suitable and adequate alternative land suggests the villages demarcated as going to be submerged are resigned to an imminent displacement.
Tirkey said a contingent of 70 villagers drawn from all the 11 villages on 32 bikes made a detour of alternative land falling in the two districts Garhwa and Palamu.
He said the villagers saw new land in a new environment for them from the Gariya Baghwar jungles down to Virajpur in the Garhwa district down to Polpol in Palamu.
“Our search was exhaustive. It is now up to the villagers to take a final call,” Tirkey added.
The people who were on this search journey will be taking their villagers in their respective villages into confidence telling them the pros and cons of every land site that they had visited upon.
“We understand the inclination of the villagers may be towards the two land sites namely Polpol and by the side of the Ouranga river,” added Tirkey
