The Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) has strongly opposed the State Government’s reported move to provide irrigated land to industries.
“The State Government has just come out with a notification issuing guidelines for diversion of irrigated and to-be-irrigated land for industrial purposes either through acquisition or direct purchase by industries. This is a highly draconian move and we strongly oppose it,” said WIO convenor Ranjan Panda in a statement.
Panda said the notification would open the floodgate of proposals for acquiring irrigated lands and doom the already stressed farmers who have been fighting years of drought impacts. “This is not acceptable and the Government must revoke this notification immediately,” he said.
He said irrigated lands have already been handed over to industries by tweaking several provisions. When the CAG reports have already rapped the Government for this, the Government, by issuing this notification, has opened a way to legalize such fraudulent acts, he alleged.
Many irrigation projects have now become targets of industries and lands have deliberately been given to industries in command areas. Issuing this notification, the Government is justifying handing over these irrigated lands in the name of investments. This is a clearly case of conspiracy, and should be stopped immediately, urged Panda.
In cases such as the Rengali dam project, which was solely built for irrigation, while the Government has not yet been able to provide the promised irrigation, industries have been allowed to take over the command area. With this notification, most of the command areas of all dam projects will be under threat, he pointed out.
Many irrigation projects such as the Rengali dam project have been built with external loan support and by displacing huge chunk of people, destroying a lot of forests and causing other problems to the localities. Now industries will be allowed to take over the irrigated areas, who will compensate all these sacrifices, he wanted to know.
He too alleged that, due to water scarcity, more and more industries are now being allowed to come near dams and reservoirs which were originally created for irrigation. Now, with this notification, it will be easier for such industries to grab irrigated lands for their existing as well as expansion proposals. This will shrink the existing irrigation potential, increase conflicts and make the farmers further vulnerable.
“A Government that has not been able to provide the 35 per cent irrigation despite repeated promises has no right to take away existing irrigated lands from farmers under any plea, contended Panda.
He stated that the notification is talking about compensatory irrigation in lieu of irrigated lands acquired, which is an absurd idea. And there are no reasons to trust the Government which has not been able to regulate industrial houses in many counts, he said.
Stating that the Government is yet to punish industries who owe water taxes and penalties to the tune of thousands of crores, he wanted to know how it can assure compensatory irrigation from these defaulting industries. “It would be better to shun this notification,” demanded Panda.