POLITICS IN WATER

Bullets rattling. A person shot to death fell from the top of a building, unconscious. It was an execution...

Raja, a person of honesty and wit is a reputed civil engineer. He is very responsible and faithful to his work which brought him a recognition from the society. There was no one who did not know Raja in Paidipaka village in west godavari district. The village was green and has no scarcity of water. They pray the river godavari to be the goddess of their survival. But there is always no happiness in one's life. The mandal parishad came up with an idea of constructing a barrier on the river in order to control the water flow. This is named polavaram project. People were asked to evacuate their homeland for the construction of that barrier enabling a reservoir to store water and from where the up streams and down streams are dug to provide irrigation to the uplands. Here is the Land Acquisition Act that promises people to rehabilitate them in good places and with right compensation.

Those villagers never thought of a situation of leaving behind their connected hometown and their goddess godavari. Will they ever be happy in a new place? Will they soon get acquainted to the place? Will they receive the compensation as promised? With all these questions they evacuate their hometowns within the prescribed time. If this is one side of the story, Raja takes up as the chief to construct the dam. There come many controversies to proceed with the construction like NGOs making noise at the work area demanding for the safe river water ecosystem, trees, people etc and neighbouring states demanding that the construction is illegal which restrict the benefits to them. Raja is used to such shortcomings and very brave to knock them down. His duty was to follow the government orders properly. He came with a plan late that night. He kept making sketches of the barrier, river etc in order to come to a conclusion. He decided that the barrier is to be constructed at a narrow end of the river valley supported by the papi hills on the both sides which may be considered the natural embankments.

 He kept analysing the plan and fell into a deep sleep in minutes. The next day began his work. It was a perfect plan approved by all the authorities and the state government. The environment clearance is the toughest to achieve in this race. But everything was cleared as the center aims to gain benefits from the project too. Everything was going on very well when comes charan, the chief engineer and negotiator between the people and the government. He had a great political backup. This construction cornered many villages and critical in many aspects but a saviour of life in other areas. Raja could not help himself thinking how paradoxical a contruction is. Half of the contructionn got finished in 12 months with day and night work of the labour. A bit of peace is followed by the official notice from the telangana, odisha and chattisgarh states accusing Andhra Pradesh of constructing a barrier at polavaram. They say they are at disadvantage because the canals channeled from the reservoirs do not support enough cusecs of water to satisfy their state demand and the villages of those states displaced have neither been properly compensated nor rehabilitated. Thus the project came to a halt for 6 months. Raja, in the meanwhile with his wife and daughter went on a tour to nagarjuna sagar. He wanted to research on the barrier there and it would aid as a tourism spot to spend time with his family. There he noticed the technicality, location, geography, social conditions, the material utilised like mud, cement etc where he noticed that the material granted for polavaram project was of low grade quality.

 He was shell shocked with this observation. He immediately emails charan and explains him in detail everything he had noticed. Charan also re checks his documents about materials and come to a conclusion that it was true. They were cheated. People were cheated. The promised quality infrastructure was not being presented. If this information is leaked to any of them opposing the project, would lead to a greater problem for the state and the project would be ceased and sealed. So charan and raja decide to meet the irrigation department or water resources department in order to sort out the things. Politics is a game of money and corruption. The more you earn, the more you stand. If you find thorns on the way, just pluck them away and make your road. The ruling party's life is in the hands of two common people now and these two demand for justice questioning the politicians. Here is the thing with Indians where they think they can shake the politicians out of their boots. But the reality is horrifying. They are ruthless murderers. They aim for nothing but money. The project cost 16000 crores approximately but the real investment made was less than half of it. Raja could not digest this feeling of disgust about the mean politicians and decided to no more hold this matter to himself. He arranged for a press meet in order to express the crime behind the scene. He was ready by 9 o clock in the morning and was sipping his cup of tea in his balcony. The press people started arriving one after the other. And Raja went missing at 9 30 AM! Around an hour and 30 minutes left for the meeting to begin.