Nilgarh Relocation: Rs 15 Lakh Per Family as Ratapani Village Moves

Tribal families of Nilgarh, a forest village in Madhya Pradesh’s Raisen district, are leaving their homes for a new settlement called Naya Nilgarh, and each family will get Rs 15 lakh, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Sunday, 25 October. The package includes Rs 5 lakh to build a house and five acres of farmland beside the highway, Chouhan said, according to ANI. He said he would attend the families’ last gathering at Nilgarh-Dhanwani, which he called a sacrifice made “for the sake of forests and wildlife”.

A House, Five Acres and a Highway Address

For the families, the move means trading a home deep inside the forest for land on a main road. In 2021 Patrika reported that Nilgarh and neighbouring Dhundhwani lay about 30 km from the highway, and that the forest department had picked land near Taranagar, close to Goharganj, for the new village. Chouhan said the higher package was decided while he was Chief Minister.

Package Dates to 2021, Move Took Five Years

The record bears out the package. On 31 December 2021, Madhya Pradesh’s Forest Minister announced that families accepting voluntary relocation from protected areas would get Rs 15 lakh instead of the Rs 10 lakh paid since 2008, after the National Tiger Conservation Authority agreed; Ratapani was named among the areas. Patrika then counted 65 families in Nilgarh and 67 in Dhundhwani. Both villages had agreed to move by September 2024, Free Press Journal reported, and the state notified Ratapani as its eighth tiger reserve on 2 December 2024, Scroll reported.

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What Sunday’s Statement Does Not Say

Chouhan’s statement does not say how many families are moving now, when the land titles will be handed over, or whether Dhundhwani is moving at the same time. The reports carry no comment from the families. Scroll reported in January 2025 that 10 villages sit inside the Ratapani sanctuary. Earlier this month Chouhan objected to forest department demolitions of tribal homes at Kosmi village in Sehore, ThePrint reported. See also the Narmada-Jhabua irrigation project and Chouhan’s Khet Bachao Abhiyan.

Source: Based on reporting by ANI, The News Mill, Patrika, Drishti IAS, Free Press Journal, Scroll and ThePrint.

Image: Free Press Journal.