When I did the mathematics for the proposed relocation scheme at Sariska described in Ghazala Shahabuddin’s article ‘Justice, endangered species’ (IE, August 8), I found the numbers intriguing. The writer had completely ignored the cost of land in the scheme she derided as unjust. The land cost I came up with using her numbers is Rs 5.25 lakh (for 2.1 ha. of land valued conservatively at Rs 1 lakh/acre) plus 16,000 as cash compensation, 7,000 as disturbance allowance, and 47,000 for housing — constituting a total of Rs 5.95 lakh per household. For the sample village of 129 households, this scheme would cost the government Rs 7.67 crore (and not 18.38 lakh as the writer avers). For 11 such villages this would approximate 84.4 crore. Not bad, really, if the outlay actually became an outcome.It is the quality of relocation which counts, and beyond a threshold figure, not the numbers. The writer concedes this when she mentions the successful relocations in Corbett and Bhadra, wherein the socio-economic lives of affected people have, in fact, improved. I could add the successful schemes at Melghat, Panna, Chilla, and Nagarhole. All of these necessarily include housing and drinking water.The villagers living inside Sariska today are already living in destitution, and not some imagined harmony with a fast-desertifying nature. This is a ground fact which the criticism of the proposed scheme could acknowledge. If the relocation site is faulted for being rocky, much of the Sariska Aravallis is the same. Present village lands are surrounded by growing swathes of over-grazed wasteland, testimony to poverty, environmental degradation and the urgent need for development. A participatory resettlement programme, with funds as described, guaranteed by well-intentioned NGOs and outside agencies, can actually break the circle of poverty and environmental destruction, and bring about meaningful change to benighted and destitute communities outside the pale of Indian development. Conservation merely provides the excuse in this case for what is a crying developmental need. especially when the villagers themselves want it.
