40 years in a transit camp 

In 1984, an entire village in Maharashtra handed over their homes and lands for a port to be developed on the shores of the Arabian Sea in Navi Mumbai. The families still struggle in temporary housing amid unsanitary conditions. The fisherfolk have now refused to vote in the Assembly elections, reports Purnima Sah

On Deepavali evening, Sheva koliwada (fishing village) does not see any grand celebrations. A few hutments hang colourful handmade paper kandils (lanterns). Approximately 54 kilometres from India’s financial capital, Mumbai, also Maharashtra’s capital, the village in the Uran taluka of Raigad district, has about 600 families, say villagers. The one-room homes made of single-brick walls have tin roofs and no windows.

“There should be money and a reason to celebrate festivals. Our life has been in darkness for the past 40 years. We will only celebrate Dusshera and Deepavali after we move to our permanent homes,” says Ramesh Bhaskar Koli, 65, a fisherman. He was 25 when he moved to the Sheva koliwada transit camp with his parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, and grandparents. A joint family of 15, they still live together, extending their one-room structure to accommodate them all.

In 1984, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) township project was coming up. The people of what was then Sheva gaon (village), in what is now Navi Mumbai, were moved to two transit camps, 12 km away, their current location. The fisherfolk got Boripakhadi village, also called Hanuman or Sheva koliwada; the farmers got Bokadvira village, also called Navin Sheva.

They were promised compensation for the loss of their land, livelihood, and way of life. In their original village, Sheva gaon, nature had given them an abundance of livelihood opportunities: there was salt from the salt pans, fish from the creeks, and fertile land where agriculture thrived. Much of what they produced, including paper from the grass, was sent to then Bombay.

After a government survey to gauge the number of households was held in 1986, it was determined that there were 256 koli families and 364 farmer and other families, to whom compensation was due. Villagers claim that they have not been compensated, new homesteads were never built for them, and they have no proof that they own the land they have lived on for 40 years now. Now, the fisherfolk have decided to boycott the Assembly election in Maharashtra, that is to be held on November 20. Earlier this year, they refused to vote in the Lok Sabha election too.

Rights around rehabilitation

“We were given an 8x8 sq. ft home, with just one room to cook, sleep, and live in. Over the years, we reclaimed the creek in the backyard and extended the house,” Ramesh says. During the rains, sewage water enters the house. “We did not have money to get the reclamation done properly. Worms wriggle in,” he says. Ramesh is the general secretary of the Maharashtra Small-Scale Traditional Fish Workers Union that has been fighting for compensation and land for the past three decades.

JNPT was commissioned in 1989, and about 1,172 hectares of land was acquired for it through the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), Maharashtra’s town planning agency, between 1983 and 1986. The port handles about half of all cargo across India’s major ports.

In the original village, the mango trees still bear fruit, but none of its previous residents are allowed to pick any. In the forests around the hilly area, knowledge of the herbs that villagers used to harvest is now lost to ‘development’. Now, JNPT uses the wells in the old village to draw water into tankers. The built-up portions are grease-smeared. The ponds are overgrown, and no one strolls in the manner of village life. The forest has overtaken the old school building.

Life in a transit camp 

In Sheva koliwada, two women are selling fish, a fresh catch from the creek nearby. To buy an commodity, from health care to daily essentials, residents must go to Uran, 14 km from here. Sheva has a primary school, where children play even on holidays. All the structures of the homes here look tired from wear, and are congested and risky to live in. The school structure too, lacks basic amenities like potable water and toilets.

Mangesh Anant Koli, 42, lives with his wife Namrata Mangesh Koli, 30; two sons, 12 years and 6 months; and his mother, 65, in a 10x10 square-foot room that has no ventilation. As Namrata fries crispy chaklis (rice-dal flour roundels) for Deepavali, she says, “None of the houses here has a bathroom. To use one, we must walk at least 2 km from our house to get to a common toilet constructed by the government. It is next to the creek and forest area,” she says. During both her pregnancies, she went to live with her sister, who lives in Uran town and has a better home and an attached bathroom, she says. “I returned only after I recovered, post-partum.”

Mangesh says that they were promised 2 guntha land (a little over 2,000 square feet). “When we were children, we adjusted, but as we all started to grow, living in such a small house became difficult. Sibling relationships fell apart due to the space crunch. Our parents could not afford to build another house, so my brothers moved to Navi Mumbai and Mumbai city, where they work as contractual workers,” he says. “My wife has been accommodating, but women do not want to marry men living in transit camps,” he adds.

Vimal Ramchandra Panchal, 72, lives with her husband Ramchandra Babu Panchal, 75, who used to be a carpenter. The couple have two sons, both married with children, but one of them moved out because of space constraints. The Panchal couple broke open a wall and laid a concrete slab over an open drain to extend the size of the house, and constructed a basic kitchen and a bathing area so small a person within cannot extend their arms outward. “At least we have one son and his wife living with us, or else they would have left too,” shares Vimal, who is making a flower toran (ornament hung over the door).

Only five years ago the residents started to get drinking water from the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), but it flows out of the taps only thrice a week, for a couple of hours. Often sewage water mixes into the drinking water, because the pipes are not laid well, says Vimal, who would earlier walk 6-10 km to fetch water for the family from waterbodies in the nearby hills and forest.

A decade ago, when Mansi Manoj Panchal, 38, agreed to marry Manoj Panchal, 43, her husband and in-laws assured her that the village would soon move out from the transit camp into permanent housing. Soon, they constructed a unit over the existing 10x10 room. Her in-laws, Lakshmi Panchal, 62, and Shankar Krishna Panchal, 77, used to make boats 40 years ago, in the old village. Now, they have no space to store the wood or unfinished pieces, so they were forced to abandon the skill. “My husband is a taxi driver and occasionally goes fishing,” says Lakshmi.

Memories of a bitter year

In Navin Sheva village, where the farmers and other families live, a couple of kilometres away from where the fisherfolk are, the situation is worse. Rajendra Gharat, in his 50s, works at the port as a junior assistant, and lives here with his wife and two children. “For years we have been subjected to injustice and not a single report highlighting our concerns and questioning the authorities has been filed,” he says, in anger. Gharat lost his father as a child, so his mother raised him and his siblings.

“I was 14 in 1984. I still remember my mother’s tears when she had to leave our ancestral home, 500 mango trees, and our farmland. People were loaded like cattle into lorries with their belongings and dumped here, as if we were debris to be unloaded,” he says. He remembers looking around at the marshy land, the plots with a four bamboo pillars marking the end of one house and the beginning of another. There was no clear understanding of on-ground plans; people were not told about compounds or backyards. “We were asked to make our own homes. It was raining heavily that time,” he recalls. Rajendra would accompany his mother to the port site, hoping to get some work to earn some money.

Over the years, residents have protested in various ways, from blocking streets to large JNPT vessels in the ocean.

The struggle for a liveable house

Ramesh says that the Maharashtra Government Gazette, dated March 12, 1987, declared Hanuman koliwada a revenue village, and a gram panchayat was formed. “But when we went to the District Collector multiple times asking him to give us some document to show that we are residents of this village, we got nothing,” he says. People were unable to open bank accounts and obtain other government documents. Meanwhile money was collected in the name of taxes, say villagers. Gram panchayat elections were irregular. “In 2019, we learnt through RTI applications that it was a bogus gram panchayat. That’s why we are boycotting the elections.”

In 1996 people approached the government for repair work to be carried out when they were troubled by termites. Despite promises, nothing was done, allege residents. The matter of relocation was discussed in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Sessions twice, in 1999 and 2000.

The District Collector of Raigad submitted a revised proposal for rehabilitation in 2002. Following this, residents filed a Public Interest Litigation [PIL] in the Bombay High Court. The Secretary of Urban Development submitted to the court in 2003 that the government had agreed to a proposal by villagers. Again, nothing moved on ground. At a 2011 meeting in Delhi, Ministers suggested a plot of land opposite the Jaskhar police station, about 10 km away, but again, there was silence.

In 2023, when a new Raigad District Collector joined, another assessment of the case was done and the new officer learnt about the prolonged battle of the displaced people. On September 30, 2024, JNPT took responsibility for the delay in writing and said the affected persons would be rehabilitated soon. The village was declared a transit camp.

Promises to keep

An official from the Raigad District Collector’s office admits that at the time of land acquisition from the villagers, plots were to be given as per family size, but it was never done. “Eight months ago, we earmarked 10 hectares of land, in Jaskhar gaon and Funde gaon in Uran and sent the proposal to the Central Government for approval, as the land belongs to JNPT.”

Now, the land will be transferred from JNPT to the Maharashtra government. However, residents are against this, as they were promised 17 acres in 1986. For the residents of Navin Sheva, two months ago it was decided that that 37 hectares would be allotted in the place the transit camp exists.

The official also said that each farmer and koli family will get 4,000 square feet of land; other families not engaged in farming or fishing will get 2,000 square feet. “We also have to do a survey, as the last one was done in 1986. We are hoping that by December 2025, people will be living in their permanent homes.”

JNPT officials did not comment when contacted; the District Collector was busy with Assembly election duties.

On November 26, village women are going on a protest at the port site against the 40-year delay in rehabilitation. The fishermen will block the navigation channel in the sea with their boats.

Published - November 16, 2024 07:56 pm IST