Odisha has enjoyed a stable Government over more than fifteen years, but the experience of this reasonably long period indicates that there is a lack of purposive direction. It appears as though we chose to chase a misleading mirage.
In the name of rapid industrialisation, we did not evolve and implement a rational norm for site selection/location and other matters relating to particular types of industries. Rampant acquisition of fertile agricultural land through illegal methods was not challenged for quite some time. There was, therefore, a general feeling that nothing would stand in the way, when the State uses its colonial power of “eminent domain”. The land owner, it is still believed, has no remedy except asking for enhanced compensation. The result was gross neglect of agriculture competing with irrational location, acquisition of land and a total lack of holistic integrated evaluation of the impact of a project.
We hold twenty-four per cent of coal, twenty-eight per cent of iron ore, fifty-nine per cent of bauxite and ninety-eight per cent of chromite of the country. There have been sufficient water and other resources. There was a boom in the metal market. Industrial houses rushed in to exploit our wealth. Assurances were held out by the Government (some of them even beyond its competence) through several MoUs. The demands of the industries were not appropriately scrutinised. land acquisition went on as per the dictates of the corporate entities. Despite all the support of the Government, latest reports indicate that proposed investments to the tune of Rs 5.29 lakh crore have been grounded, though the concerned industries had signed MoUs with the State Government.
According to the report of the Economic Survey of the Odisha Government, a vast quantum of agricultural land has no irrigation facilities. The percentage of the area under irrigation is higher in Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar. The area under agriculture fell by about 3.7 lakh hectares during the last decade. If one delves into further reports, in 2000-01, about 62.6 lakh hectares of land was under cultivation. It decreased to around 60 lakh hectares in 2003-04 and to about 54.2 hectares in 2014-15. The area under cultivation has demonstrably declined. Both male and female farmers have numerically declined. Persons working as agricultural labourers have also indicated a decline. The contribution of agriculture to the State Gross Domestic Product is way below the other sectors. The contribution of the agriculture sector was 21.67 per cent in the beginning of the centur, and it has now come down to 12.75 per cent in 2013-14. Additionally, the one-rupee rice available in villages dampens the initiative, entrepreneurship and productive engagement of the village folk. There is today a serious dearth of agricultural labourers. Many agricultural labourers have been reduced to penury because the 1894 land Acquisition Act did not entitle them to any compensation, in case the land they are working on is subjected to compulsory acquisition.
A case study of the Posco fiasco demonstrates that hasty determination of the location, inadequate evaluation of the project contents and of the socioeconomic impact of the proposed acquisition had dominantly influenced the decision-making process. Allegation has been made that the Posco site was selected through a helicopter survey by the head of a department and a high executive of Posco. The illegalities, inequities and irrationalities in the decision did not receive any responsible attention. A decade of destiny became a decade of destitution. All kinds of clever manouvres were made and the betel-leaf growers were driven to the street. There was large-scale destruction of plantation. The Government hurriedly cut down about 2.5 lakh trees and uprooted about 1,116 betel vine farms on abound 2,000 acres. The land acquisition of certain villages meant for the Posco project was challenged before the Orissa High Court, which found several fatal infirmities in the process of acquisition and halted the process of acquisition of several villages. A few years later, the Government submitted before the court that it was withdrawing the notifications for land acquisition relating to those areas. While a tortuous battle by the local population and the intervention of the court saved the villages, there was wanton destruction of the natural habitat of an area comparable to the Sundarbans of West Bengal. There was obvious adverse socioeconomic impact and irreparable damage to the ecological fabric of the area. The 2013 land Acquisition Act very wisely makes a socioeconomic impact evaluation mandatory for enabling a rational selection and pursuant decision regarding any land acquisition.
The present Odisha Government has opposed amendments brought in through repetitive Ordinances. Thereby our Government has opposed the amendments which include avoidance of this in a substantive manner. The Government has also reportedly suggested to the Niti Aayog amendments that may be incorporated to the 2013 land Acquisition Act enabling allotment of shares in the corporate body (that is going to be located on the land) either to the concerned gram panchayats or to the concerned persons, who are affected by the acquisition of land. Proper rehabilitation is a condition precedent to dispossession and resettlement. Consent of the affected people through representative bodies came in as a protective substitution of the hitherto existing colonial, exploitative and excessively deprivatory provisions of the 1894 land Acquisition Act. Indicators do not demonstrate that the authorities learnt anything from the experiences of the last decade. The suggestions continue to gather dust, but in reality the orientation of the administration is still not responsive and very often continues to demonstrate the crude use of police power. A sample of this is now being enacted in Belabahali in Keonjhar district.
If you look at the overzealous attempt at recommending the handing over of mineral resources to a foreigner-owned company, elementary provisions of the MMDR Act relating to “notified” and “non-notified” areas were ignored for reasons better known to those who are the authors of such decisions.
Time and tide waits for no one. The wheels of progress and rationality resulted in a drastic change in the policy at the national level and the mineral resources were now to be sold at the highest feasible prices through some form of auction. No industrialist comes only for charitable purposes. The massive benefits and demands that were expected to be fulfilled included destruction of huge plantations, age-old mangrove, a captive private port (the requirement of which is still baffling with Paradip next door and Dhamra also not far away) and the insistence on granting a particular mining area with inseparable linkage with biodiversity and ecological equilibrium. The organisd attempts to favour the Posco often ignored mandatory provisions of law. Inappropriate selection of site and illegal modalities of land acquisition also went beyond the patience threshold of Mittal. They withdrew from the proposed project and the Posco is not formally saying so because it still does not want to give up the beach land and beach sand, which have hidden minerals of rare nature.
This is the crucial hour when we should set our house in order. A project proponent is bound to ask for every conceivable benefit that can be squeezed out of public resources. It is for a responsible Government to evaluate those requirements on the touchstone of eventual benefit to the people, especially those who are to be rendered landless and homeless for providing the land.
let reason and rationality condition the decision-making process. Public law has advanced through the decision of the House of lords relating to investment through the Overseas Development Programme of the British Government in some projects in Malaysia. As it was found that the projects concerned were not conducive to the welfare of the concerned people, the investment decisions were abandoned upon being annulled by the judicial forum. When litigation is the only remedy, there is an indication that the Government is insensitive and nonresponsive to the real welfare of its citizens. The gap between the State and its residents is widening and there is a dire necessity of proactive actions on the part of all of us. let it not be said to our shame that we paid no heed to what Gandhiji often said, “There is enough for everybody’s need, but not for everybody’s greed”. And this concerns us all!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. yantdas@hotmail.com)