Click to play videoMaharashtra: The rising water levels of the Narmada river have submerged the villages of Manibeli, Thimalkhedi and Bhitara in Madhya Pradesh and the Narmada Bachao Andolan has decided to protest instead of waiting for Government support to pour in.
Medha Patkar is going to spearhead the agitation, which started in the Bhadwani district of Madhya Pradesh at 1100 hours on Saturday.
Simultaneous protest rallies are also going to start in other places spread across the state, which have been affected by the Sardar Sarovar Project.
There's a race against time with the increasing water level for the people in the Narmada Valley and spearheading a people's satyagraha movement is Medha Patkar.
In a candid chat with CNN-IBN's George Koshy, Medha Patkar explained about the new Satyagraha that she has planned.
"It is nothing new. Satyagraha is satyagraha - the pledge for truth. Since there is an untruth - in the form of rehabilitaion of these people, which the Government claims has been completed - that is being publicised and produced in the courts and the Centre has not intervened, we have to take up the challenge," said she.
"The waters would be flooding villages in the tribal and hilly regions of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and some villages in Gujarat. Under flood would also be the thickly populated villages on the prime agricultural land of the Nimad region of Madhya Pradesh. So we have a serious challenge because there are schools, dispensaries, markets, horticulture, best of agriculture and pucca and mud houses of farmers, labourers, fishermen and boatsmen - everything can go under the water," she added.
According to her, there are 35,000 families in the officially drawn submergence area at the height of 122 metres.
"The Government has stopped three metres below at 119 metres but no one has the exact submergence area drawn even on the map for 119 metres. So there are thousands of families who are anyway being threatened with submergence," she stated.
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