JHARSUGUDA: More than six decades back nearly 22,000 families left their home and hearth to make way for the world’s longest earthen dam, Hirakud. Today all they have is a make-shift home for shelter and no regular source of income.In 1948, the villagers, in scant regard to their future, gave up fertile lands and means of livelihood at one call given by Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru, while laying the first batch of concrete for the dam in April that year had said, “If you are to suffer, suffer in the interest of the country,” and the villagers, still steeped in love for the motherland, sacrificed everything which to this day remain unrewarded.Nilamani (75) and wife Kuntala Dhurua (70), one of the many suffering families, had settled in Lakhanpur after their native village, Phalsapali, met watery grave to make way for the dam. They are yet to be compensated or rehabilitated. Though the old couple have lost all hopes, they seek solace in each other and sit outside their shanty counting their days to embrace death.An unfulfilled responsibility which still worries Nilamani is their unmarried daughter. With not enough money to make ends meet after being displaced, their daughter could not pursue education. The family of three now manages with the meagre Old Age Pension and wages, their daughter earns by rolling beedis. Despite being enlisted in BPL, they have neither been given any homestead land or shelter under Indira Awas Yojana (IAY).God too seems to be playing a cruel joke on them as the family waits endlessly to get enlisted in the IAY scheme. Waging this war for over 25 years, a hopeful Nilamani has been attending the palli sabha each time it is called only to find his name missing from the list.While Nilamani does not have an answer as to why he is being left out despite being approved in the palli sabha, Jharsuguda Additional District Magistrate Rabindra Mishra assured to look into the case and expedite allocation of land to the landless and houses under IAY to such people.
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