M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, March 3: Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) and Kutku Doob Chhetra Sangharsh Samiti are working in unison in the direction of rehabilitation and resettlement of villages facing imminent submergence if and when the North Koel Water Reservoir Project commonly called Mandal dam gets operational.
The Deputy Director (North division) of PTR Kumar Ashish and chief of the Kutku Doob Chhetra Sangharsh Samiti Pratap Tirkey and his team are said to be making a joint effort in identifying suitable land for the ousters.
Series of meetings, discussions and village lunch diplomacy is done to foster understanding and trust between the PTR and people spearheading rehabilitation campaigns.
Pratap Tirkey said, “Our villagers have seen a chunk of 1,358 acres of land in two blocks of Garhwa namely Bhandarya and Ramkanda where villagers, on their displacement, will like to resettle.”
Tirkey said the 1,358 acres of landfall in Baya Khura, Durjun and Jeneva. The villagers have expressed their choice of resettlement here.
Kumar Ashish said that PTR is extremely concerned about the rehabilitation and resettlement of villages facing imminent submergence if and when the North Koel Water Reservoir Project gets operational.
He said that PTR is according high priority to five more such villages apart from seven other villages which have been kept out of the loop of the rehabilitation. These villages are Totki, Chapiya and Polpol in Garhwa district and Tanwai and Nagar Nago in Latehar district.
“These villages deserve to be well taken care of by the forest department as people of these villages have been living a second-hand life just for being in the PTR,” Ashish said.
“Their geo location in PTR has deprived them of their rights and benefits of many government developmental schemes which PTR acknowledges and now wants these five villages to have an honourable and dignified resettlement for which the PTR is fully committed to their upliftment,” added Ashish.
Pratap Tirkey said, “780 families would be displaced. These families fall in 7 villages Kutku, Khaira, Khura, Bhajanya Meral, Sanya and Chemo. We want suitable rehabilitation of these villages.”
“We have found out another fleet of 250 households which do get threatened by the submergence,” Tirkey added.
Sources said that the state irrigation department that is the user agent of the Mandal dam is to do resettlement and rehabilitation of these 7 villages.
Kumar Ashish said that PTR understands that 5 villages Totki, Chapiya, Polpol, Tanwai and Nagar Nago left out of the submergence zones have the equal need and chance to be resettled like the people of 7 villages.
PTR within its permissible ambit will not disappoint people of these 5 villages as it counts ‘sacrifices’ of people of these 5 villages to be quite important in the tiger reserve.
Ashish said the Wildlife Protection Act came as a break to these 5 villages who till today did not know they too have a right to walk on good roads and their children to get exposure to the competition of the world.
“PTR in line with its National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is ready to stand by these 5 villages in terms of their adequate settling outside the tiger reserve,” asserted Kumar Ashish.
He asked people not to get misinformed or misled by the vested interest.
An atmosphere of trust and confidence has emerged between the two major stakeholders of the Mandal dam, PTR and the villagers who are destined to be displaced after this.
