Protests fade, Godda village welcomes progress that comes with Adani plant

MOTIA (GODDA): About 10km from Godda town on the Gumla-Bhagalpur highway, a left turn leads to Motia village. What was a dirt track until two months ago is now a smooth bitumen road. Another 5km down, concrete walls and barbed wire fences surround two giant billboards welcoming visitors to Adani Power's thermal power plant.

Work for the Rs 15,000 crore 1600MW plant, scheduled to be operational by 2022, is in progress on a war footing.

Motia became the epicentre of protests in 2017, when Adani Power signed an MoU with Bangladesh to set up two 800MW thermal power plant here. As the government identified 2,300-odd acres of land for the project, protests spread to four other villages — Gangta, Gayghat, Nayabad and Mali.

The resistance was led by JVM-P general secretary and Poreyahat MLA Pradeep Yadav, who spent five months in for allegedly orchestrating a violent protest in March 2017 in which several police personnel and villagers were injured.

Yadav has now thrown in his hat for the Godda Lok Sabha constituency, which goes to the polls in the final phase on Sunday. Such was Yadav’s intent to contest from here that he was willing to go solo if he was not given the mahagathbandhan ticket for the constituency. He is up against BJP’s sitting MP Nishikant Dubey, who is often credited with ushering in development in the region.

But as much as Yadav tried to make displacement and land grab a poll plank for himself, these are not real issues for the 7,000-odd villagers here. Most land-losers welcome the handsome compensation of Rs 49 lakh per acre they received from Adani Power and see the plant as a harbinger of change.

Chaman Lal Paswan parted with 2.5 acres of land and he built his two-storeyed building, replacing his mud hut, from the compensation he received. “The power plant has transformed lives. It doesn’t matter who is contesting the elections. People will vote for development,” he says.

Apart from the cash in hand, migrant youths from other parts of the state and across the country started flowing into the area to make a living here. Shailesh Singh, who came all the way from Chapra, Bihar, and opened a tea stall here says, “The money I make is fair. Hundreds of workers, security staff and officials come to my stall every day.” Next to him, Babloo Mandal from Bengal sells instant noodles.

Ramesh Kumar Mandal, who has set up a saloon outside his house, says he is not bothered about what Yadav says about land acquisition. “Politicians have their own agenda. What matters for us is survival. The company (Adani) will give us jobs.”

Adani Power has promised to provide jobs to skilled men and women at various roles once the plant is operational and to prepare the locals the primary school in the village now has a skill training centre for women.

The enthusiasm among the locals is so palpable that even Congress’s Jamtara MLA Irfan Ansari acknowledged that farmers and land owners are in favour of the project. “I have extensively toured areas where land has been acquired. I am yet come across a single place where farmers are not willing to part with their land for the power plant,” he said last month. Significantly, the mahagathbandhan here is led by Congress.

Motia has moved on from violent protests to being on the verge of becoming a thriving township with all amenities that come with it.

However, Yadav is still banking on the protests he led to see him through in the polls. “It is because of my consistent fight that the Adanis were forced to hike the compensation amount. It was I who pressed for power supply to Godda. The people of Motia and nearby villages know all about my efforts to get them their right. If I win, I will continue to fight the corporates for the people against,” he says

Meanwhile, BJP candidate Dubey has accused Yadav of orchestrating protests against Adani for extorting money. “Most of the people whose land were acquired are working in Britain, New Delhi, Kolkata and Ranchi. The protests were led by people who were illegally farming on these lands. The protests occurred only because my opponent wanted to extort money,” he says.