Barvi dam: How to kill an eco-system

As I build this dam I bury my life…
The dawn breaks
There is no flour in the grinding stone
I collect yesterday’s husk for today’s meal
The sun rises…
and my spirit sinks… 
Hiding my baby under a basket
I go to build this dam.
The dam is ready
It feeds the sugarcane fields,
making the crop lush and juicy
But I walk miles in the searing sun…
in search of a drop of drinking water.
I water the vegetation with drops of my sweat, 
as dry leaves fall and fill my parched yard.
—Translation of a song sung by tribal women displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Project, Narmada valley

These days, villagers living in and around the banks of the dam on the Barvi river at Badlapur, 90km from Mumbai, could well be singing the song of the displaced Narmada Valley adivasi. With every centimetre added to the dam’s height, they fear they are moving closer and closer to displacement — yet again. And from the very land they had been rehabilitated on when the dam was first built. 

The rock-bed of the river is being blasted to buttress the dam’s walls. And come monsoon, fears Balkrishna S Bangar, 65, his village, Tondli, its homes and fields will submerge in the waters. The same fear is spread across Tondli, Kachkoli, Mohaghar, Tale and Kolewakhel villages, home to Agri, Kunbi and adivasi communities, with a population of around 8,000.

Over 3,000 acres of prime forest land is also expected to get submerged, according to the project plan. Never mind the fact that under the Tribal Sub plan of the Planning Commission, this belt falls under the eco-sensitive zone of the Western Ghats. The villages and forest area are ensconced between undulating hills in Murbad taluka of Thane district on the banks of the catchment area of Barvi. Built at a cost of Rs3.5 crore in 1973, the dam, originally 38.10 m high, displaced around 2,000 people from seven villages and submerged over 4,750 acres of dense forests.

The villagers, among them Bangar, were offered equal amounts of land for what they lost. “We are being uprooted once again from the land we were given for rehabilitating us then,’’ says Bangar. The rhythmic whirr of machinery is discordant with the hypnotic drone of the dragonflies. But only just. It neither breaks the serene monotony of the silent mountain air, nor is it quite in tune with the cacophony of the forest in the Barvi valley.

Bangar’s neighbour Harishchandra Shelke, 34, says, “Every year, the water would halt way below the fields despite heavy rains. For the first time, this year, I fear it will enter the village.”

The history of the dam, inextricably linked with that of Tondli village, runs deeper than its deceptively calm waters let on. The village, originally situated exactly where the dam now stands, was shifted to its present location when the dam was built. What the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) did not tell the villagers was that they would be relocated plum in the middle of what will become the dam’s catchment area! “We lost our homes and fields and were hoodwinked into moving by being offered an equal amount of land here,” says Umesh Bhoir, sarpanch of Tondli village.

Five kilometres upstream, Girija Khaparde calls to her three-year-old son paddling by the submerged hand-pump at the shoreline near Kolewakhel. The pump was built last year so that the village wouldn’t run dry. Today, ironically, there’s water aplenty. The Barvi dam, whose height is being raised, has made sure of that. It has also stirred a creeping fear in the 92 adivasi families here of submergence.

Each of the project-affected families is to get a plot of around 0.5 acres of land at Murbad, off the MIDC industrial belt. Girija scoffs, “How can we adivasis, who’ve lived for generations in forests, take to city life?” The non-tribals who own land live off it, while others work as farmhands on others’ fields. But they are entirely dependent on forest produce, selling wild fruits, flowers and palash leaves.

The displacement & rehab game
How many times can a community be called upon to sacrifice for the greater common good? Once? Twice? Three times? In the case of these villagers, this will be the fourth time: the height of the dam was raised from the original 38.10 m to 44.7m in 1979, to 52m in 1985, to 66.5m in 1999, and now is being raised to 72m this year. And who are they being asked to sacrifice for? No prizes for guessing: their urban counterparts.

Rapid population growth in the suburbs has increased the demand for water, and work on raising the height of the dam, from 66.5 m to 72 m, began in January this year, points out MIDC superintendent engineer Vijay Panikar. “The total storage capacity will be enhanced from 174 million cubic metres to 347 million cubic metres. All civic bodies like the Thane Municipal Corporation, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivili, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi-Nizampura, and Mira-Bhayander have emerged as the fast-growing far suburbs of Mumbai. This augmentation will address the  increasing water needs of 5.4 million people,” says Panikar. “When water levels shrink, MIDC is besieged by complaints from the civic bodies of these suburbs.”

He dismisses fears of total submergence, saying, “No matter how high the walls are raised, water levels will rise only when the overflow section is raised.’’ But he admits that the latest raising of the dam height will displace 3,375 people. Interestingly, though a survey was done to establish the number of Project Affected Persons (PAPs), no Environment Impact Analysis (EIA) — mandatory according to Union environment ministry guidelines — was done before work started. “We will be asking a private firm, Consulting Engineering Services, to conduct the EIA,” says Panikar, but evades answers on why it was not done before.

Breaking the leopard corridor
Local environmental activists like Kishore Gholap also wonder why this project does not factor in the fact that this area is a well-established corridor for three different leopard habitats. On one side is Naneghat hills, which reach into Junnar; on the other, the densely forested Malshej; and on this third the jungle between Murbad and Kalyan. “If a big cat like the leopard finds enough prey-base here, then we are talking of a well developed ecosystem to sustain this food chain,” he points out, and adds, “Successive height-rises have eaten more and more into this thickly forested habitat and soon the cats will not be able to cross over. This could lead to in-breeding, weakening of the gene pool, and ultimately wiping out of leopards.”

In fact, in Kolewakhel village five months ago, a leopard killed a young tribal girl. The irate Katlkari villagers gave chase when they heard the girl’s screams and killed the leopard. 

During his 2009 assembly election campaign, local MLA Kathore Kisan Shankar had assured villagers that “not even a brick will be laid before rehabilitation is undertaken.” But his tune changed after he won. “Ultimately we cannot allow lakhs in Kalyan, Dombivli and Ulhasnagar to go thirsty, can we?” he reasoned, when DNA spoke to him.  With the state government seemingly untroubled by the human and environmental costs of raising the Barvi dam’s height, the villagers watch uneasily as the project ploughs on.

The political games
Local politics also makes the villagers easy grist at the hustings as the six townships fed by the dam are promised that its height would be raised to increase water supply. When affected villages protested, sitting Murbad MLA Kathore Kisan Shankar, anxious not to upset his electoral applecart, told villagers he would oppose the plans. To pledge support, he had even participated in a protest march to the tehsildar’s office. But after he won, his veneer began to peel off: He first told the villagers they would be appropriately rehabilitated. Then in April this year, he said: “‘Some will have to make sacrifices for the larger benefit.”

Tondli sarpanch, Indubai Bangar, says the local administration as well as Kathore, continue to dodge questions about rehabilitation. “Nobody has bothered to speak to me though I have contacted several officials.”

Alternatives, however, do exist. For one, regular desilting of the catchment area would prevent the reservoir from shrinking. Second, plans to build another dam, at Poshir in Karjat, could easily have been reactivated. The site earmarked there is far from human habitation. However, building a new dam would entail money and planning. Besides, it would fail to impinge upon the consciousness of the electorate.

Since raising the dam takes a year at best, its bounty is strategically bestowed in an election year. Local politicians hope it will continue to rain a bounty on them.