Upping the ante against controversial public hearing to be held on May 24 for the proposed nuclear power plant, women of Chutka village in Mandla district drove away the contractors who had come to erect tents for the public hearing.
Nauratan Dubey, a village resident informed The Pioneer on Monday that women of Chutka took the action as the villagers are opposed to the public hearing.
“The contractors arrived in the village on Sunday with 3-truck loads of tent materials. Some of the women saw these trucks and the tent material early in the morning. They enquired with the people accompanying the trucks and found that they have come to put up the tents and making other preparations for the jan-sunwai (public hearing) that the Government will conduct on May 24,” he informed.
“These women alerted the villagers. Soon a large number of villagers consisting mostly women gathered at the place and they forced the contractor to run away from the place. However, the contractor said before leaving that they will return there with police force,” he added.
Notably, Mandla Collector lokesh Kumar Jatav said that he has no information of any such incident in the village. “The villagers have come here a few days back to submit a memorandum demanding the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report in Hindi. We have already provided a summary. If anybody still has any concerns they will be addressed as far as possible,” the Collector said.
The villagers, however, contend that the summary of the report is not sufficient for them to make anything out of it.
“The public hearing has been organised to grant environmental clearance to the project. However, the environmental report is in English which nobody understands here. The Government has provided a 45-page summary in Hindi, but it is insufficient and too complicated for anybody to understand. So we have demanded that the report should be provided in Hindi and it should be thoroughly explained to the people. That is why we have decided to boycott the public hearing,” Nauratan said.
Notably, the villagers have formed a group named Chutka Paramanu Sangharsh Samiti to resist the nuclear plant. They staged a dharna outside the Collector’s office in Mandla on May 9 and submitted a memorandum putting forth their demands.
Nauratan Dubey informed that the villagers will meet the Collector again on 15th to submit a memorandum. “We have decided to start a dharna if the government ignores our demands,” he said.
Meanwhile, several organisations including Jan Sangharsh Morcha, Revolutionary Youth Federation of India, National Alliance for People’s Movements and others have extended support to the agitation by Chutka villagers.