Displaced and forgotten

The persons uprooted from Chhamb 17,400 people from 20 villages 8212; were put up in the refugee camps at Krishanpur and Narwal, about 60 km from Jammu and the Chhamb Displaced Persons Rehabilitation Authority CDPRA set up in 1974 with the Jamp;K chief secretary as itschairman.

The CDPRA in its rehabilitation award of 1976 scattered them over 129 bastis in seven tehsils in border areas of Jammu and Kathua districts. And this was just beginning of their problems.

The cash relief, which was to continue till they harvested their first crop, was stopped as soon as they shifted to the bastis. The Government limited the extent of compensation to 6 acres of irrigated land and four acres of non-irrigated land. Corruption and negligence ensured that a large number of displaced persons did not get the land or got what was in physical possession of others.

They have already suffered severely due to the transplantation. Education was one casualty. Many of them died without getting any compensation. Their being scattered over seven tehsils has prevented any political mobilisation. As the land they have been given is mostly not good for cultivation, a majority of them are eking out a living working as labourers.

Shanti Devi, now living in a shanty in Danwal, Akhnoor tehsil,whose family was among the richest in Chhamb with 182 canals of land, did not get any agricultural land during the initial allotment in 1976 even though the records suggested so. She and her husband did petty jobs to raise their four sons and three daughters and recently have, after a long struggle, got compensation of Rs 32,000 for their land.

Many others also got less then their due. Following complaints, a review was done that identified 699 families as having got land less than what had been promised. At least 75 families, says S.R. Nagiyal, president, Chhamb Displaced Persons Association, have not got even a canal of land from the Government so far.

The Centre ultimately decided to give cash compensation in cases where less land was allotted and against the recommended prices varying from Rs 2,000 to Rs 29,000, set a maximum compensation limit of Rs 5,000 for a canal of irrigated land. Out of the Rs 4.60 crore sanctioned in 1990 for distribution among 699 families, the first installment of Rs 1 crorewas paid only in 1995 and the second of Rs 1.25 crore this year.

Nagial says that the Government has not released a supplementary list of those who were left out, forcing them to move the court. 8220;The CDPRA office closed in 1991 and the displaced persons DPs had nobody to go to. I had to repeatedly shuttle between Delhi and Jammu to get the compensation installment released after five years of its sanction8221;, he adds.

The DPs complain that first they were given less and substandard land and the compensation too has been little. Rohlu Ram, 65, of Khour basti near Akhnoor says that he was table-allotted a small plot that fell in the fodder-land of the village. 8220;I had over 150 canals of land in Chhamb8221;, he says, while complaining that he had been sanctioned only about Rs 50,000 in compensation. 8220;Unlike the displaced persons of 1947, we do not have proprietary rights over the allotted land which could enable us to raise loans or sell the land8221;, Nagial says. 8220;We are now not entitled to the quota inprofessional college admissions given to those residing near the Line of Control8221;.

Officials at the Divisional Commissioner office in Jammu say that since the displaced persons had been resettled along the international border IB, they couldn8217;t be considered for LoC quota. Asked about the six-year delay in the disbursement of rehabilitation amount, the officials said that the Home Ministry had been insisting on an audit report of the money given and as the report was not easily forthcoming, further installments also were not released. Admitting of possible table-allotments by junior revenue officials, they said that the complaints could have been redressed had the victims approached them. The officials however said the that the demand for proprietary rights was genuine.

Having failed to get their names included in the list of 699, several DPs moved the court. Following repeated directions from the state High Court in these cases, the Divisional Commissioner8217;s office wrote to the revenue authorities onthe need of preparing a supplementary list of those who had been left out. More than a year later, it is still waiting for a reply.From the records

In its report Rehabilitating displaced persons from Chhamb, produced by DAVP after the Chhamb Displaced Persons Rehabilitation Authority was set up in 1974, the Government of India says: 8220;as a consequence of the Indo-Pak conflict of December 1971, nearly 8.36 lakh Indian nationals living in or near the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan had to move to safer places within these states. The bulk of these people in Punjab and Rajasthan returned to their homes and have been resettled.

8220;In Jammu and Kashmir, about 1.67 lakh persons inhabiting 400 villages on the border were uprooted. They included 17,400 persons about 4,300 families of Chhamb-Niabat area whose lands went to Pakistan as a result of the delineation of the actual line of control under the Shimla Agreement.

8220;The displaced persons from Chhamb-Niabat were residing in 20 villages on the other side of the present line of control. The total area left behind by them is estimated at 37,000 acres, which included 18,000 acresof cultivable land. With the exception of 300 families, all of them were agriculturists.8221;