Joshimath struggle completes 100 days, people protest demanding rehabilitation policy and compensation
Hundred days ago, every newspaper, TV channel was full of news of Joshimath Dhansav. Thousands of people of Joshimath were directly and indirectly affected by the devastation in Joshimath. According to official data, the government has distributed Rs 10 crore as compensation to 167 people. The Chief Minister of the state has also announced in a program two days ago that Joshimath is safe and ready for the Char Dham Yatra.
According to the official website, about 11 lakh people will pass through Joshimath for the Char Dham Yatra. But after going to the ground, it has come to know that people have become homeless and are spending their days in apprehension of dire danger.
Joshimath Sangharsh Samiti has been fighting for the proper rehabilitation and displacement of the people of Joshimath for the last hundred days. But they say that the government has left Ram in charge by ignoring their demands. Monsoon is about to arrive after two months due to which people are worried about the possibility of heavy destruction. In support of this movement, ‘Youth for Himalaya’, formed by the youth of the Himalayan states, has also joined the fray.
A team consisting of several organizations has come to support this dharna, which on Wednesday roamed throughout the day and interacted with the affected people of Joshimath. Significantly, cases of landslides started coming in Joshimath from December itself. Landslides had occurred at many places in the beginning of January. In Manohar Bagh, Sunil, Sindhar Ward and Oli Road of the city, people had told about cracks in the houses.
In the city area, along with houses, agricultural land was also affected by landslides. There were big cracks in the fields here and in many places the cracks in the fields became wide up to one feet. The process of subsidence came to the fore on the night of January 2-3 when suddenly huge cracks appeared in many houses. After this, fear spread in the whole city.
Cracks appeared in several houses of Jaypee Company’s residential colony located in Marwari ward. Suddenly brown water started leaking from the hill behind the colony at night itself. A buttress of the colony also collapsed due to the crack. Along with this, thick cracks also appeared on the Badrinath Highway. At the same time, slight cracks were also seen in the residential buildings of the tehsil. Landslide caused cracks in Shankaracharya Math complex.
Biseshwari Devi of Singhdhar ward number four says that where should she go with her minor and fatherless two granddaughters. Where should he take his cows? The government had even made arrangements for food for the humans for a few days. It was also talked about giving fifteen thousand rupees every month for the animals. But he did not meet anyone. There are cracks in our houses. His sister-in-law, Devrani’s house has completely collapsed. We have been accommodated in a school but where to take our cow.
Biseshwari further says that “the field where we used to earn our living by growing vegetables has cracks, nothing was sown there. I am scared to come home”. He has appealed to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of the country that “you come at the time of voting, but when we have become homeless, we did not even come and see. Our Chief Minister came to Joshimath two days back for the marathon but neither came to our dharna two steps away nor came to see our houses”.
She asks did we vote for this. Their demand is that they should be given a house instead of a house, they should be given a field instead of a field. What about money, money is a temporary thing. For how many days we will live on the basis of that money. We are the only old people left at home. My young son has died. How will we survive without land? She starts crying remembering her son.
The people of Joshimath claim that the ‘National Thermal Power Corporation’ (NTPC) company got 39 blasts done to prepare a tunnel in the ‘Vishnugarh Hydro Electric Project’, due to which some natural water source present inside the earth has burst. After which very strong mud water started flowing continuously from some parts of the city. Due to which the city started sinking rapidly.
The 12 km long tunnel will carry the river water to the ‘turbine’ of the ‘hydro-electric station’, parts of which are passing through Joshimath’s land as claimed by the townspeople. On the other hand, agencies like ‘BRO’ and other private companies are doing the work of road construction. In which blasting and heavy machines are being used.
December 24, 2009 A huge ‘tunnel boring machine’ (TBM), which quietly digs tunnels for metro trains under the earth of big cities, suddenly got stuck. Thousands of liters of clean water started flowing from the front. Months passed, but the most capable engineers could not stop this water and neither did the TBM start. Actually, this man-made machine had made a hole in a large water reservoir made by nature. 6 to 7 crore liters of water keeps flowing daily for a long time. Gradually this water reservoir became empty.
This water reservoir was 3 km inside the mountain standing on the left bank of the Alaknanda river flowing nearby above Joshimath. This tunnel was being dug with ‘TBM machine’ for the ‘Vishnugarh Hydro Electric Project’ being built at Joshimath in Chamoli district. This is the project of ‘National Thermal Power Corporation’ i.e. NTPC. Actually this work was being done by an Indian construction company ‘Larsen & Toubro’ (L&T) and an Australian company ‘Alpine Mereder Bau’. But in 2014, this agreement was called off due to geographical constraints.
The agreement between ‘L&T’ and ‘Alpine Mereder Bau’ for this tunnel of ‘NTPC’ was signed in November 2006. The agreement was worth Rs 456 crore. This company was to construct an 11.5 kilometer tunnel.
Apart from this, the contract for the next work was awarded to ‘Patel Engineering Company’ in October 2007. The amount of this contract was more than this i.e. 107 million US dollars. While the first companies got the contract worth $ 102 million. ‘Patel Engineering Company’ was to make ‘Pressure Shaft’, ‘Pen-Stock’, ‘Tail Race Tunnel’, ‘Switch Yard’ and ‘Power House’ for this.
In 2010, when water started seeping from the tunnel, the local people protested. But they were not listened to. The project is running just one and a half kilometer away from Joshi Math. ‘ABB Company’ got the contract for supply of transformers. ‘Ritvik Projects’ got the contract to build the barrage. A company named ‘Geoconsult’ got the responsibility of consultation and its main financier became ‘Asian Development Bank’ ie ADB.
Presently ‘Hindustan Construction Company’ is working on this tunnel, which has got a contract of 96 million dollars. From time to time, different experts had given warnings about such developments. Since 2003, social activists, small movements have been continuously trying to take such developments to the doorstep of the government in both the states. The situation in Joshimath was warned by the 18-member MC Mishra committee in its report 46 years ago in 1976 itself.
According to the report of the committee, Joshimath is situated on the old landslide zone, under which there is no rock, but sand and stones. Due to the flow of Alaknanda river and Dhauli Ganga, landslides have been taking place on the banks of the river and the mountain. The report said that due to more construction activity and increasing population, landslides will increase further. The report simply suggested a strict ban on road repairs, heavy construction, earthworks and blasting.
After this, many other big institutions including ‘Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology’ gave continuous warnings. However, how much the government or the administration heard or accepted them, it is in front of everyone today. In the year 2006, a team of scientists prepared a report named ‘Joshimath Localized Subsidence and Active Erosion of the Ati Wala’. It clearly stated that Joshimath city and surrounding areas like Ravi Gram Ward, Kamet and Sema are slipping one centimeter every year.
After this, in the year 2020, Geologist and Director of ‘Uttarakhand Space Application Center’ Professor MPS Bisht and Piyush Rautela also conducted a study on Joshimath area, which was published in ‘Current Science’. It was said in this that Joshimath and Tapovan areas are sensitive in terms of geography and environment. Despite this, ‘hydroelectric projects’ have been approved around this entire area. Vishnugarh is also one such project.
A few days before the collapse, the scientists of Ropar IIT also came for inspection, they also said that the whole city is in danger here, but the administration has not made any arrangements in advance. Prima facie, the central and state governments are responsible for this criminal act in Joshimath. Who approved such projects. And then the companies, the executives of the companies, the professors of the universities and their protégés who prepared the environmental impact and social impact reports in the interests of the companies.
Senior journalist and environmentalist Gyanendra Rawat writes in his article that “Construction of tunnel based projects in the name of development like hydro power plants, ‘all weather road’ etc. is creating such conditions in this Himalayan state that the forest, land and Not only will it waste the moisture, even the snow will not last and the rivers will dry up. The drying up of water sources is already indicating future disaster. In such a situation, work is going on in hundreds of tunnel-based projects in the state.
More than 600 tunnel based dams are proposed. For which thousands of kilometer long tunnels will be built. Due to this, more than 500 villages will be destroyed. Due to the explosions done for the dams, where the mountains will be in pieces, their debris will go into the rivers, which will increase the magnitude of the flood.
A statement was issued two months ago by Atul Sati, convenor of ‘Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti’, in which it was said that “It has been proved that NTPC’s ‘Tapovan Vishnugarh project’ is solely responsible for the destruction of Joshimath”. As we have been saying for years.
In view of these facts, it has now become necessary that the compensation for the destruction of Joshimath should be recovered from NTPC. NTPC should compensate our loss just on the lines of ‘Chain’. He should give twice the total cost of his project to the residents of Joshimath. In this way, one crore rupees comes in the share of every person of each family. The project which was once worth 3200 crores has now become more than 10 thousand crores.
There cannot be any cost to destroy a historical cultural heritage city of humanity. NTPC is responsible for the loss of each and every family and individual. NTPC should give one crore rupees to each person and family. The government should direct NTPC for this. The central government should set up a high-level empowered committee for time-bound construction of a new and state-of-the-art Joshimath by giving us land in exchange for our house and land in exchange for our house.
After the statement of Army General and ISRO scientists, there is not much to say now. The conditions are clear. Just waiting for the time. The government should immediately give an account of our land acquired and occupied by the army. Because after the disaster this question will get buried in the files. Our Benap land on which we have been doing tenant farming for years and due to the negligence of the government, it has not been registered in the name of tenants due to non-endowment, that too should be registered in our accounts. So that we can get the land or the value of the land.
‘Youth for Himalaya’ believes that a serious tragedy of the kind that took place in Joshimath required a massive and urgent response by the government. For the last three months, the people of Joshimath have been struggling for this, which has become the main cause of concern for the people of the entire Himalayan region, this crisis has put the future of the Himalayas in worry. All the power projects, road projects, rail projects, dam projects being built in the entire Himalayas should be stopped immediately.
Laws that strengthen the rights of communities dependent on forests such as nomads, Dalits and tribal people over forests and resources should be strengthened and implemented. The disaster affected people in the Himalayan region should be rehabilitated at a fast pace. And in future, a concrete action plan should be chalked out so that the public does not get troubled like this.
Gagandeep
