The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has observed that there has been rights violation of about 10,000 families in lower Suktel project. Commission Special Rapporteur Damodar Sarangi who was entrusted to visit the site and submit a report after investigation has exposed the plight of the common men and the illegalities continued while executing the project. The Special Rapporteur in this report pointed out that the very purpose of execution of the project without analysing the Social Impact Assessment.
“The large scale expenditure seems to be meaningless as the project could not be executed for more than a decade. About 10,000 people out of whom one third belong to the ST community are affected by the project. There has not been a thorough rehabilitation and resettlement measure nor are all the land losers compensated. The journalists along with the protestors were assaulted and apparently false cases have been slapped on them. Therefore a CB-CID investigation has been recommended. Remedial measures for rectification in land records and corruption in payment of compensation should be detected at all levels,” the report stated.
Earlier the commission registered two cases on separate petitions filed by Chandranath Dani and Radhakanta Tripathy. Pursuant to the notices of the NHRC the State Government denied the allegations made by the petitioners relating to the human rights violations while executing the project.