The Great Land Grab

ORISSA
Prafulla Das in Bhubaneswar

TO the outside world, Orissa is no longer the land of the Jagannath Temple in Puri, the Sun Temple in Konark or the Chilika lake. It is now best known for places such as Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri, Dhinkia, Khandadhar and Kashipur whose residents are up in arms against the acquisition of thousands of acres of land for mining and other industrial projects that can sound the death knell of their livelihoods. Police lathi charge and firing, and the foisting of “false cases” on people fighting to protect their land have become the order of the day. Protests are also on the rise against the taking over of thousands of acres of both government and private land to establish private universities and other educational institutions.

Between 2002 and 2010, the State government cleared 184 industrial projects involving a total investment of Rs.8 lakh crore. They include 50 plants for the production of 83 million tonnes of steel at an investment of Rs.2,50,000 crore, 30 thermal power plants for a targeted production of 37,000 MW of power, four port projects, several alumina refineries and a number of cement plants. 

The government has identified 14 sites to develop ports along the 480-km coastline.

All these industrial projects require more than 50,000 acres of land. Besides, thousands of acres are to be alienated for the extraction of iron ore, coal, bauxite and other minerals to meet the raw material needs of the projects. This is over and above the vast tracts of land already under mining.

However, the State government has been able to facilitate the acquisition of only about 15,000 acres. A few companies are buying land for their projects directly from the people, by winning over influential people, in different areas. With the State government accepting more and more proposals for industry, resistance to the acquisition of land has grown stronger. The government has deployed thousands of police personnel to help the land acquisition authorities.

In the Dhinkia area in Jagatsinghpur district, the Orissa government has been making a last-ditch effort to acquire 4,000 acres of land for the proposed 12-million-tonne steel mill of the South Korean giant Posco in the face of stiff resistance from local people. Although the villagers have gone to court, terming the land acquisition “illegal” and violative of the Forest Rights Act, the government is going ahead with it.

Last year, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik assured a delegation from the Posco project area that he would visit the villages to hear them out. But he has since backed out. And, notwithstanding the opposition at a number of places across the State, his government has not stopped signing MoUs with more and more companies. The MoUs hold the promise of employment to thousands of people. But the fact is that lakhs of people will get displaced and lose their livelihood because of the proposed projects. In the case of Posco, the creation of 7,000 jobs has been promised, but the venture will affect the lives and livelihood of more than 20,000 people.

In fact, Patnaik's tenure, which began in March 2000, marks the rising of many people's movements against land acquisition for private companies. Three tribal men died when the police opened fire on agitators at Maikanch village in Kashipur block of Rayagada district in December 2000.

Those taking the industrialisation process forward, however, did not learn from their mistakes at Maikanch. The resistance to land acquisition reached a flashpoint on January 2, 2006, when 13 people died in police firing at the Kalinganagar industrial hub in Jajpur district. The tribal people there were opposing the construction of a boundary wall for the proposed six-million-tonne steel plant of Tata Steel.

Though the incident attracted widespread attention, Patnaik did not even visit the spot after the firing. The only visit he paid to the area after a long time was to inaugurate a police station in the locality where the administration has been striving to displace the tribal people by dividing them on political lines.

As criticism grew, the State government came out with a new rehabilitation and resettlement policy and established a new directorate for it. Patnaik claimed that the policy was one of the best in the country. But the situation on the ground has shown no improvement, and every time there is resistance from the people, the government deploys the police to tackle the situation.

The administration turns a deaf ear to the project displaced people. In many cases the affected people have approached a court of law or the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. The results, however, have not been very encouraging for them. The major opposition parties too are equally indifferent when it comes to opposing displacement.

Tribal people, who bear the brunt of industrial development, have been fighting tooth and nail against the acquisition of forest land and mineral-bearing land and hills. Be it in the case of the Niyamgiri hills at Lanjigargh in Kalahandi, which Vedanta Aluminium Limited was trying to mine, or the Khandadhar hills in Sundargarh district, which the government was hell-bent on handing over to Posco for iron-ore extraction, they have come out in large numbers to oppose mining, which would adversely affect their livelihoods and water availability.

Surprisingly, the State government seems to have missed the point about how the regions witnessing maximum industrial growth and mining activity will be able to cope with the cumulative impact of the so-called industrial development. The 30 thermal power plants alone would generate 90 million tonnes of fly ash a year, and there is little land available to dump this waste.

Further, the acquisition of vast areas of land for industrial projects has created a real estate boom across the State. The poor are the losers as corporate houses and real estate developers vie with one another to grab land. The hype over industrial development has already cost the farmers and tribal people dear.

Supporters of people fighting against displacement at Narayanpatna and other places have been insisting that it is high time the government reviewed its approach of handing over land to corporate houses. But the State government, which claims to be making efforts to draw a balance between the environment and industrialisation, is not willing to listen.

Worse, people's movements are branded as pro-Maoist, and innocent people and activists questioning the land acquisition moves are jailed and charged with having links with the extremists.