Gangubai Patil, an Anganwadi teacher for over three decades in Pophran village, has no place to call home. A fortnight ago, she was served with a notice from the gram panchayat to evict her tin shed, classified as “house” in the notice.

Patil, a Dalit widow listed in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category, is the resident of one of the two villages — Pophran and Akkarpatti — shifted to make space for the much-touted Tarapur Atomic Power Project-III and IV in Palghar taluka. The project is estimated to contribute an average of 160-mega watt (MW) to the National Power Grid.

“My name appears in the 1,250 project-affected family list. But I am yet to receive any compensation from the government. I have shifted at least three times in past two years, living out of tin sheds and makeshift arrangements on the land borrowed from my neighbours. Now, they have asked me to shift from here too,” says Patil.

Patil’s story resonates through Pophran and Akkarpatti villages which were displaced in early 2005 after phase III and IV of the Tarapur project took off. While people of Akkarpatti village were lucky to have received decent houses against evicted ones, Pophran is marked with potholed roads and cracked houses. Water and electricity connection is yet to reach the village. The electricity posts passing through Pophran to light up a nearby village has extended wires, clearly indicating rampant electricity thefts in the village. “It’s an irony that they shifted us to make way for a power project but haven’t cared to make any electricity provisions for us yet,” says Virendra Patil, a project-affected person who too awaits compensation.

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