There is a growing sense of anxiety among farmers for they were ordered not to cultivate paddy in the Htamanthi hydel project area in northwestern Burma. The project will commence very soon in Sagaing Division of Burma with the assistance from India.

Burmese military’s Infantry Battalion No. 370 ordered local farmers not to cultivate paddy in the Kuki tribe dominated villages in Homalin, Sagaing Division. These villages are Laivomzang, Ta Son, Chin Maithaung and Shan Maithaung in the project area.

The local farmers told Mizzima over telephone, “There are a total 500 acres of fallow land in four villages and we lost 25,000 baskets of paddy. Though we can consume from the stocks we have from last year’s crop this year, we have no idea what to do next year. And they have paid no compensation for our follow land.”

But the authorities paid Ks 50,000 compensation to U Ngam Kho Sat from Laivomzan village. He is lucky because he got compensation. The authorities confiscated his land for construction of a PWO guest house. The land is worth Ks. 8 lakhs at current market prices. The four earth wave heavy machinery and diesel have arrived at the project site.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Burmese Junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe signed an MoU for the construction of the Thamanthi hydel project in October 2004. At that time, India and Burma signed an understanding on flushing out cross-border militant groups, cross-border infrastructure development project, the Kaladan multi-modal transport project, India-Burma-Thailand trilateral highway project, India-Burma-Bangladesh gas pipeline projects and Thamanti Hydro-electric Power projects.

The Thamanthi dam will be built by National Hydroelectricity Power Corporation (NHPC) of India and 80% of power will be consumed by India and the rest 20% is for Burma.

The Kuki Student Democratic Front (KSDF) staged a protest demonstration on June 28 this year at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against the project.

The dam is to be constructed near a village called ” Laivomzang ” located between Homalin and Thamanti towns in Chindwin basin and is expected to generate a minimum of 1200 Megawatts.

Pre-dominantly occupied by ethnic Kukis, the proposed dam site is also known as the largest natural park of Burma, where varied species of wild life ranging from the rhinoceros to tigers and wild boars abound. It also home to the famous hornbills and rare air-borne species.

“This project has already started exploiting our forestry and it will result in all our rare animal species to migrate to other places like the Kaziranga sanctuary in Assam,” said Let Lam, advisor of the KSDF.