SRINAGAR, 10 September 2021, (TON): Surrounded by lush green forests and fields of mustard, wheat and maize, Dungara is a small village in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Kathua district.

Most residents of Dungara, which falls in the disputed Himalayan region’s Jammu area, are farmers who grow fruit, rice, and mulberry trees to produce silk.

But their quaint village lifestyle is threatened by the Indian government’s plan to construct a large multipurpose project on Ujh, a tributary of the Ravi River which in turn pours into the Indus River.

The Ujh project, expected to produce 186 megawatts of electricity, would completely submerge Dungara and displace the villagers. It would also involve the cutting down of more than 330,000 trees, compounding the villagers’ anger.

A local non-profit, the Village Social Development and Welfare Committee, has launched a movement against the Ujh project.

“No one in the village supports the construction of this project,” NGO chairman and village head SP Sharma told Al Jazeera. “But no one is listening to us.”

The government says at least 52 villages, with a total of about 3,700 families, are likely to lose their homesteads due to the acquisition of land for dam construction and the subsequent area of submergence.

The fear of displacement is more palpable among the women in the village.