Where are the jobs, what will happen to our river: angry villagers have complaint list

These words hardly find an echo here as you listen to the litany of complaints that villagers and panchayat pradhans have: from reneging on employment promises — just about 10 jobs have gone to locals so far — to threat and intimidation to get additional land, from damage to local water bodies to felling of trees for expansion of the distillery.

The most recent flashpoint is the expansion of an 11-foot-wide unmetalled road that runs for about 2 km to a tarred 31-foot-wide road to facilitate transport of equipment and material to and from the distillery. The expansion of the road required another round of land acquisition, resulting in tension between distillery managers and villagers.

Several villagers allege they were forced to give up their land to make way for the road. Among them is local physician S K Dahri.

Locals also complain bitterly about the fact that the natural flow of Begna, a seasonal river, will be hampered since the distillery has been constructed right on the river bed, which may result in flooding of their fields and even villages. The construction of the 31-foot-road, villagers say, has also resulted in the caving in of natural rivulets that freely flowed under it earlier. Says Mohan Singh, a farmer from Badoli, “We are considering launching a full-fledged agitation on the manner in which the distillery is functioning and affecting lives of villagers.”

Last month, villagers of Sherpur, local forest officials and staff of the distillery were involved in a fracas over an alleged land grab. Says Pawan Diwan, the Sarpanch of Sherpur, “In 2003, the forest...