Village model for rehabilitation of dam affected villages: case of Omkareshwar Dam

Abstract

The issues of rehabilitation in dam affected areas are under considerations across the world. Dam brings huge area under submergence to store water .In the process many villages comes under submergence and they are asked to give away their land to fulfill the country’s energy and power requirements. The process of displacing people from their natural habitat carries huge risk in successfully rehabilitating them to reach their original lifestyle or better than before. The displacement takes them away from their workplace, and makes them insecure for livelihoods. The rehabilitation policies in India do not ensure or guarantee the income based options to outsees that are giving their land involuntarily. The policy should consider villagers as the first investors in development. The aim of this thesis is to provide affected villagers better habitable place after losing their roots. The objectives are - analyzing and addressing the issues in rehabilitation of Omkareshwar dam affected areas, finding planning prospects which also deals with local aspect of resettlement in new sites. Also suggesting recommendations which can improve rural life in resettled villages and examining the case considering parameters based on Social, economic and ecological concerns. To fulfill the objectives data is collected from various offices such NHDC, NVDA etc. To examine the real situation, visit to the affected and rehabilitated villages is carried out and primary surveys were done on the basis of indictors and parameters considered to examine social, economical and ecological changes. Survey results and analysis by comparing rehabilitation sites and affected villages states that the situation at rehabilitation sites is poor due to their location, bad accessibility, tough terrains, and joblessness .On the basis of analysis and literature review which says that rehabilitation should never be dealt without giving ensured job options, solution is given. Solution is provided in the form of layout which is based on occupation and job insured considering three scenarios –land for land, indigenous settlement and job insured urban settlement. The proposal includes suggestive measures, policy recommendation, and employment generating options and model village layouts which can be considered in other similar dam rehabilitation projects.