Luxmi Nautiyal

As an only child, Luxmi Nautiyal grew up in a protective environment, never venturing out to explore her environment alone. But once she joined IndiaUnheard, Luxmi surprised herself as well as her community by integrating so fully that she is now, as a Community Correspondent, a pioneering spirit bent on addressing environmental, educational, and children’s rights issues.

Unplanned development begets a progression from one bad development idea to the other. Since the early 1960s, the valley town of Tehri in Uttarakhand is at the vortex of one such developmental Bermuda triangle created by the policies and plans of the state. The old and historic town of Tehri with its rich culture and fertile plains was waterlogged and sunk by the construction of one of the country’s highest dams – the namesake Tehri dam. Prior to the sinking, the inhabitants of old Tehri were displaced and shifted into a new Tehri. New Tehri, built won lavish political promises and false hopes was found sorely lacking in terms of infrastructure. Roads were half baked. Houses were badly built and insufficient. Even water was in short supply. Basic civic functions like sanitation were non-existent. There was a scramble for resources among the displaced. Land and resources were encroached upon. Badly built floors were constructed onto badly built houses. Shops and verandas spilled onto the narrow roads.