PRESS TRUST OF INDIA, JULY 11, 2006
A day after the Supreme Court refused to stop construction work on Sardar Sarovar Project, Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar on Tuesday alleged that the Shunglu Committee report was “untruthful” and “based on fraud data and distorted conclusions.”
“The report cannot stand the test of social science research methodology. The overall statistics and analysis, including conclusions and recommendations prove to be a weak attempt to justify the official position on both the number of affected families or status of rehabilitation,” she said at a press conference in New Delhi.
The report was submitted to the apex Court by the Oversight Group (OSG) led by former Comptroller and Auditor General VK Shunglu instituted to look into the relief and rehabilitation work in Madhya Pradesh said there was no substantial deviation in the number of Project Affected Families (PAFs) in the state.
Claiming that this finding was “baseless”, Patkar said the report had “bluffed the Prime Minister and the apex court as it had approved the legal violations by the MP government.”
“How can they say there is no deviation in PAFs? NSSO data related to adivasi villages of Alirajpur in Jhabua district prove that surveyors did not survey every family as claimed. They have not truthfully reported the numbers where deviation is found,” she said.
Even though OSG admits that claims made during survey could not be substantiated, said Patkar, it never planned any method of investigation into the claims either through a separate detailed questionnaire or Gramsabha consultations.

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