IT is hoped that discontent in Gilgit-Baltistan will now die down following the federal government’s out-of-court settlement with the thousands of families who will be displaced by the Diamer-Bhasha dam. Last month’s tragic incident in which two protesters were shot dead by security personnel is still fresh in people’s minds, and any further delay in arriving at a consensus solution could have exacerbated matters. The demands raised by those affected by Diamer-Bhasha included market-rate compensation for land acquired by the government, a healthy quota for local workers in jobs generated by the dam and demarcation of the GB-NWFP border. It seems the first two concerns have now been addressed, though the compensation accepted by the affectees is less than what they were claiming at the outset. Some 30,000 families from 31 villages are to collectively receive Rs40bn over a period of three years, and we are told that nine ‘model villages’ will be built for their resettlement.
Delivering on promises, however, has never been the strongest suit of Pakistani governments. Compensation claims related to Tarbela dam are still pending from the ’60s, and it can only be hoped that Diamer-Bhasha affectees will receive fairer treatment. Among more recent projects, the Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project has long been subject to disputes over loss of livelihood while the Lyari Expressway project in Karachi has also played havoc with people’s lives. And even if the government pays those displaced by Diamer-Bhasha on time and builds new villages as promised, the costs of resettlement go beyond monetisation. The Asian Development Bank puts the problem in a nutshell: affectees of mega projects must be “assisted so that their economic and social future will generally be at least as favourable with the project as without it”. In other words, the land provided ought to be of a quality comparable to that acquired by the state, livelihoods must not be lost and — equally significantly — the resettled should not be stripped of their culture and traditional way of life. These are issues that require sustained thought and, above all, honesty of purpose. Nothing less will do.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/diamerbhasha-settlement-530
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