By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Dec 11 1998 (IPS)

The World Commission on Dams (WCD) is being told how local communities were uprooted and politicians got kickbacks from projects in South Asia even as officials argue big dams are critical for food security.

Both sides are pressing their case for and against big dams before the WCD, an independent international group constituted earlier this year and based in South Africa to review the impact of big dams around the world and propose internationally acceptable criteria to governments.

The two-day public hearing in Colombo is the first of a series of regional meetings around the world. On Thursday, WCD commissioners heard representations from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Cases from Bangladesh and Nepal are scheduled for Friday.

India’s Sripal Dharmadhikary, from the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) or movement to save the Narmada river, spoke of the political meddling that influences much of the dam projects in India’s western region.

“If dams are supposed to solve the problems of the people, then they have not done so,” he said, adding that the Bargi dam in central India took 18 years for completion, and the process has psychologically scarred the displaced.

Dam proponents say there is no option. “It is easy to say, don’t do this and don’t do that. But what options do we have?” asked Sardar M. Tariq, managing director of the state-owned Water and Power Development Authority of Pakistan who says dams increase land under cultivation.

He said his country’s food import bill was growing while irrigated land was shrinking. “We need to bring another 50 percent of unused land under irrigation if we are to raise local production, and the only way to do this is by building large dams.”

India’s George Verghese, senior researcher at the New Delhi- based Centre for Policy Studies, a private think-tank, argued along similar lines to say large dams were an essential part of development.

“When the rain falls, we have got to catch it and send that water to areas where people don’t have this resource. That is an established fact. If not for the major dams in India, we would be still dependent on imported food grains,” he asserted.

Non-governmental organisations from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka presented cases of how large dams have been more detrimental than beneficial to local people but the most effective plea came from a shy, young Sri Lankan woman, leading a fight for basic facilities in her village.

Amarakoon Ralage Karunawathi, 30, is herself a victim. Ten years ago, her village of 48 families was taken over by a multi- purpose scheme in southern Balangoda district, and people forced to resettle some 10-kms away.

“Each family was given just 0.5 hectares … my father lost four hectares of good paddy and vegetable land as a result (of displacement),” she disclosed.

“The authorities promised us water. But the wells provided by the government are dependent on the rains and not natural springs. They are dry for at least four months of the year” she said. During the dry season, women and children have to fetch water from nearby villages, one kilometre away, she added.

“We had plenty of water in our old village,” Karunawathi who heads a local women’s group, testified in Sinhalese at the hearing.

The WCD is led by Prof Kader Asmal, currently minister of water affairs and forestry in South Africa. Other members include Indian development scientist Lakshmi Chand Jain, Don Blackmore from Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Joji Carino of the Philippines-based International Alliance of Indigenous Tribal Peoples, Deborah Moore from U.S. Environmental Defence Fund, Indian activist Medha Patkar from the NBA, Shen Gouyi from China’s Ministry of Water Resources, Prof Thayer Scudder from the California Institute of Technology, Judy Henderson from Oxfam International, Australia, Jan Veltrop, president of the International Commission on Large Dams and Achim Steiner, WCD secretary-general.

Two members, Goran Lindahl of Sweden’s ABB (Asea Brown Boveri), one of the world’s biggest builders of dams, and Prof. Jose Goldemberg are not attending the Colombo meeting.

The South Asia regional hearing was earlier planned in India in September but was suddenly cancelled by the Indian government, which cited a case pending in India’s Supreme Court on the controversial Narmada dam project as reason for backing out.

Commission chairman, Prof Asmal told reporters in Colombo that the late intervention of the Indian government was an unfortunate matter and also noted with regret the absence of Indian government officials at the two-day hearing.

“The most important issue as far as the commission is concerned is that we come here with an open mind. We listen to everyone and we don’t take sides,” he said.

India’s massive Sardar Sarovar Dam project, a part of the giant 3 billion dollar Narmada Valley Project, was not among the cases presented from India. Dharmadhikary from the NBA said he could not raise the project at the hearing as it was sub-judice.

Construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in India’s western Gujarat state has been delayed by several years because of litigation in the Supreme Court by the NBA.

Other projects discussed on Thursday were the Kotmale Dam in Sri Lanka, and Pakistan’s 3,600 MW Kalabagh Dam, to be built in the North West Frontier Province, despite vociferous opposition of three of the country’s four provinces – the exception being Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s home province.

Urging governments to take local people into confidence before proposing big dam projects, economist Aly Ercelawn, a former university teacher and member of an advocacy group, the Creed Alliance, in Pakistan said “the people who are affected are the last to be told.”

In response, Pakistani official Tariq said his government will not go ahead with the Kalabagh Dam until there was public consensus on the project.

Environmental scientist Hemantha Withanage, representing Sri Lanka’s Environmental Foundation Ltd (EFL), said they were opposed to the Kotmale project because it threatens several villages. The project has been suspended by court order, but government officials pressed their case before the WCD.

The stated objective of the regional hearings – to be conducted world-wide – is for the WCD to hear directly from different interest groups including people’s organisations, policymakers, academics and project developers.

After the two-day hearings, the WCD commissioners will hold a two-day private meeting and make field visits to Sri Lankan dam sites where they will meet with dam authorities and displaced communities.

The WCD will review the impact of projects on local communities – issues of resettlement and compensation – and environmental assessments as well as differing technology options.

At the end of its mandated two years, by mid-2000, the Commission will formally submit a report with recommendations to the international community as well as to the president of the World Bank and the director general of the IUCN-World Conservation Union.

The report is expected to propose internationally acceptable criteria and guidelines for planning, designing, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of dams.

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