Year: 2020 | Month: December | Volume 9 | Issue 4
Hirakud Dam Oustees and Procrastination of Justice in India
Ashok Dansana
DOI:10.30954/2249-6637.04.2020.10
Abstract:
The Government of India had taken many developmental initiatives in the early years of independence and Hirakud Dam project was one among them, which was claimed as a milestone at that juncture and designed to serve multiple purposes of a substantial population in the State of the than Odisha. The initial phase of land acquisition and people displacement for the project was trouble ridden. The affected people staged agitations and shown their unwillingness for construction of dam on the river Mahanadi at Hirakud, Sambalpur. Despite of people resistance and indifferences they were persuaded for the greater causes and displaced with the assurance of immediate rehabilitation and adequate compensation for their sacrifices. In this paper an attempt has been done to make an account of existing circumstances and which also reveals the facts that there is serious abdication of the responsibility on the part of both, the Regional Government and Central Government. It is found that a large number of oustees of the project have not been restored and rehabilitated yet, even after nearly 75 years past to the commencement of the project. The nature of deprivation, stigma and social disintegration caused by displacement is found to be profound and widespread among the substantial population of Dam’s oustees. The displaced have started developing a sense of distrust and hopelessness with a grave sense of disappointment and allegation against government. Lack of proper compensations and rehabilitation by the government has forced the displaced people to move to different places to settle themselves on their own initiatives. The recent attempts of measures by the Regional Government have been failed repeatedly simply because of inadequate approaches of government machineries. It is suggested that there are needs of more rigorous and holistic approaches of the State power to settle the long standing issue in a comprehensive manner.
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