Garhwal village in Uttarakhand submerged to make way for hydel project

DEHRADUN

: As many as 20 families, a majority of them tribal, living in the remote

Lohari

village of

Uttarakhand

's Jaunsar Bawar region, were served 48-hour eviction notices by the district

administration

on Saturday. On Sunday, with teary eyes and heavy hearts, they packed their bags, removed the window panes and wooden logs of their houses, and bid farewell to the place they had called home for decades. The villagers' farmlands and houses will be swallowed by the

Vyasi

reservoir as part of the 120 MW Vyasi hydropower project.

The process to submerge the area was started some months ago and is likely to be completed by Tuesday.

The hydropower project was earlier a part of the 420 MW Lakhwar-Vyasi dam project, the biggest hydroelectric dam complex on the Yamuna river.

Roughly 75 km away from Dehradun, it is likely to start generating electricity by the end of this week.

The initiative started in 1972, when a land acquisition agreement was signed between the government and villagers for the dam complex. Between 1977 and 1989, 8,495 hectares of land in the village was acquired for the project. For the next few decades, the project failed to take off. In 2014, it was revived by the government and work started on it again.

Many village residents said they are "angry" with the government about the timing of the eviction and the way they were "forced to abandon" their houses.

“On Saturday, officials of the tehsil administration came to us with an eviction notice. There was no emergency situation or strategic reason for the government to acquire our land,” said Naresh Chauhan, an advocate and a resident of Lohari.

Project director of the Vyasi hydropower project, SC Baluni, told TOI, “Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam was handed over the land by the district administration and the water level reached 629 metres on Monday. It is likely to reach its maximum limit of 631 metres by Tuesday, which is why the villagers were asked to vacate.”

Additional district magistrate (ADM) of Dehradun, SK Barnwal, said, “All the villagers left their homes safely and the 0.2-hectare area where the houses were constructed was handed over to the Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam. Rs 15.44-crore compensation was distributed to the villagers. They were offered land at Khadar, which they refused.”

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