Rainforest Information Centre Narmada Campaign

The Rainforest Information Centre has been involved in projects in India for some 15 years (www.rainforestinfo.org.auprojects/India.htm) and earlier this year we received an email from Pete Webb, an Aussie volunteer in Maharashtra who's work we've been supporting.

Pete told us about a friend of his over there, Ronnie Sabawalla, who's engineering firm was producing peddle-powered electricity generators which they sold at below cost to impoverished tribal schools.

I was intrigued and wrote to Ronnie for more info: what did they use the electricity for? How come they weren't on the grid which covers India? How many such schools are there?

The answers amazed and outraged me. The schools in question were in villages due to be flooded by one of the mega dams being built on the Narmada River, the infamous Sardar Sarovar dam. The state government was trying to move the people out of their villages but the people refused as there was no land for them to move to.

So the government applied various pressures including ... they cut off the electricity to those villages! The schools need electricity needed because the children worked all day in the fields then went to school at night where they studied with expensive and polluting kerosene fuelled lamps. Where they had been supplied with the peddle powered generators, kids take it in turn peddling to generate light for each other to study by. The generators are highly efficient and peddling for one hour stores enough electricity to run a compact fluorescent light bulb for 4 hours. Each generator costs about A$350 to build while the battery costs another $100 to $350 depending on size. So far they have supplied 8 schools. There are hundreds of villages affected, home to some 41,000 families who will be displaced if the Sardar Sarovar Dam is completed.

The Narmada Dams! I remember our campaign against these monstrosities back in the mid- '80's when RIC was part of a world-wide campaign to stop the World Bank from funding them. I remember in particular one action in Canberra held outside AusAID when they were hosting the Director of the World Bank. Patrick Anderson in a loin cloth lay in the gutter while Ian Peter stood over him in a tux and a tophat with dollars poking out of it and his polished black shoe on Patrick's throat as he spoke about the many ways that the World Bank would help the poor and downtrodden.

Like I say, I was outraged to realise that in spite of the World Bank's ignominious exit the projects were moving ahead and as usual, the poorest of the poor were paying the costs.

How appropriate that in order to generate electricity for industry and irrigation for cash crops, the electricity is cut off from the tribals and the impoverished and their fields are flooded!

So, the Rainforest Information Centre is once again joining a campaign against the Narmada Dams which will include both stop ping the dams and assisting the villagers who are suffering at the hands of the dam builders. Here are some of our preliminary ideas:

STOP THE DAM

* Join the campaign of the "Friends of the River Narmada" (see www. narmada.org).

* Support the grassroots peasants movement NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan - Save the Narmada Movement)

* Get together with other Australian NGO's who are interested in this issue. These include AID/WATCH (http://www.aidwatch.org.au/) and Association for India's Development Australia (www.aidindia.org/sydney). Co-operate with NGO's outside Australia on this issue eg International Rivers Network (www.irn.org).

* Help educate people about this issue. In particular, it seems that the Gujarat government is trying to get expatriate Indians to invest in the dam and it is important to try and let them know what the horrendous consequences of the dam will be if it proceeds.

HELP THE VILLAGERS

* Raise funds both to subsidise or donate peddle generators to affected schools and for a revolving loan fund so that village residents have a chance for several neighbours to get together and borrow money to buy a generator at cost.

* Find other ways to use benign technologies to improve village life. For example, Nimbin company Flowtrack is producing tiny LED lights which clip onto a 9 volt flashlight battery and make a torch that runs for 30 hours. In conjunction with rechargeable

batteries, these would be another important use for the peddle-generated electricity.

* Twin Australian schools with Indian schools both to educate and conscientise the kids and to raise money for peddle generators and other school needs.

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For more information about the Narmada Dams, see www.narmada.org and www.irn.org.

See in particular the splendid article by Aravinda Pillalamarri "Peoples' Knowledge in a Paperless Society" at www.aidindia.org/hq/publications/essays.htm and Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy's "The People Versus the God of Big Dams" at www.rainforestinfo.org.aunarmada/roy.htm and her "The Greater Common Good" at www.narmada.org/gcg/gcgindex.html

For more on the peddle-powered generators (including pictures) see http://www.aidindia.org/hq/projects/illus/pedal.htm

If you would like to be part of this campaign and receive emails from time to time as the campaign progresses, please contact me at johnseed@ozemail.com.au.

If you would like to do a fundraiser for a peddle-powered generator, tax-deductible donations may be sent to Rainforest Information Centre

PO Box 368 Lismore

NSW 2480

AUSTRALIA

Donations in the US and UK may also be tax-deductible, email me for details.