Green Revolution in small-town Pen

MAY 16: The rippling water is deceptively calm as it bathes the banks of the Dharmatar creek. For from these saline waters rise columns of...

MAY 16: The rippling water is deceptively calm as it bathes the banks of the Dharmatar creek. For from these saline waters rise columns of wild rushes anxious to tell a five-year tale of Green Revolution to anyone who cares to listen. Today, five years after 1,300 acres of adjacent paddy fields were submerged by the creek, the 700-odd families of 48 villages in Pen taluka in Raigad district are ready to reclaim their land after an agitation against two multi-nationals paid off. The upshot: Rs 15 lakh in compensation from the two companies and an equal amount from the state government for the loss of livelihood.

The first hint of trouble arrived seven years ago, when Ispat Industries and H & R Johnson Pvt Ltd opened factories near the creek not far from the Mumbai-Goa highway. Spread over 900 acres, the companies reclaimed land, sank pipelines and with their expanding infrastructure narrowed the mouth of the creek. Consequently, the flow of water — from the Amba, Nigada and Sambri rivers and the ebb and flow of the Arabian Sea — was reversed.

Two years later, the inevitable happened: the old bund bordering the creek gave way and the 1,300 acres of paddy fields was inundated with saline water, rendering the land infertile.

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“We lost everything. No cultivable soil meant no farming and that in turn meant no money. It has been a tough five years and we had to fight very hard to win,” recalls Janaki Damodar Tande of Burde village.

After sporadic protests over the years went unheard, the women from the surrounding villages decided to agitate last year. Under the banner of the Kashtakari Mahila Agadi, they began to approach all the relevant authorities.

Describing the high point of their agitation, Geeta Thakur says: “One day, we gheraoed the collector and company officials in the former’s office. We told them that we would not let them leave unless they gave us a commitment. We had been starving for the last five years and we told them that a day without food would do them a little good too.”

It took the collective might of every woman in the 48 villages to finally convince the then Raigad district collector, Shrikant Deshpande, that the two munti-nationals were indeed responsible for the damage to their fields.

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According to the cost estimate worked out, Johnson and Ispat were to pay Rs 15 lakh (in a 70-30 ratio) while the state government contributed an equal amount by way of waiving royalties on construction material purchased by the two companies. An additional Rs 3 lakh came from the government in return for the shramdan performed by the villagers, who built a new bund the stem the waters of the creek. Encouraged by their victory, they built the bund in a single month, from February to March 2000.

“As our fields lay underwater, we tried to make a living selling fruit at railway stations and on trains of the Konkan Railway. But the ticket collectors didn’t let us do that also,” says Vimal Patil of Salindre village. “Every other day, we were forced to pay huge sums to the railway officials for selling our wares on the Konkan Railway network. We had no choice, there is nothing else we can do to survive.”

Adds Manjula Shirshekar: “When we started our agitation, the men laughed at us. They asked us how we would get a bund built. But we proved them wrong. Our agitation set the ball rolling and then the men pitched in to build bund.”

But the long wait is not quite over yet, the villagers explain. They will now have to wait two to three years before they can actually till the land again. “It will take that long for the land to be revived,” says Geeta Thakur. “In the meantime we are marking our plots again. And then we are hoping it will be like the good old days.”