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HALTING THE MINING JUGGERNAUT

People’s Struggles Against Alumina Projects in Orissa

People's Union for Democratic RightsJuly 2005

People's Union for Democratic Rights, DelhiJuly 2005

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C O N T E N T S

Introduction 1

I . The Three Projects 2Utkal Alumina International Ltd. (UAIL) 2Vedanta Alumina 3Aditya Alumina 3

I I . The Persistence of Backwardness 5The Region and its People 6Predominance of Agriculture 7Agrarian Relations: Land Holdings, Sharecropping & Labour 8

I I I . Small Carrot, Big Stick 10Dubious Process of Surveys, Consent & Land Acquisition 11People's Resistance 14State Response 18

IV. Why Mining: Orissa's Industrial Policy & Aluminium 19Aluminium: Whence it Came, Where it Goes 22

V. The Myth of Rehabilitation 24

Inherent Flaws in Rehabilitation Policy 24

Conclusion 31

Boxes

Mining by Hook and Crook 4

Bullets of Development:The Road to Maikanch 16

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IntroductionKashipur, Rayagada district and nearby areas in southwest Orissa have

been in the news for a number of bauxite mining and alumina refinery projectsbeing set up by the Orissa government in association with various Indian andforeign mining companies. From the very beginning these projects facedpersistent and militant resistance by the local people, largely tribal andscheduled caste. The resistance movements felt that these projects would resultin large scale displacement, loss of livelihood and access to forest and waterresources. This would further damage the already marginalized existence ofthe people. The projects would also cause large-scale ecological degradationthrough deforestation, water, air and soil pollution. The conflict reached a crisisin December 2000, when the police fired on anti-mining demonstrators, killingthree and injuring many more. Even after the deaths, the police repression onthe movement continued, as indicated by the findings of a PUDR team thatvisited Kashipur in 2001, and the reports published by various democraticrights groups from all over India. Over the last year, various reports mentionedintensified activity by the police and district administration including arrests,and general repression, as the government is adamant to push the projectsthrough.

It is in this context that a five-member team from PUDR conducted a factfinding, from 16 to 23 April 2005, to examine the reported ongoing policerepression. We tried to examine people’s rights in the context of bauxite mining,land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation.

The current team covered three bauxite mining projects: Utkal AluminaInternational Ltd. (UAIL) in Tikiri and Kashipur PS area, Aditya Alumina inTikiri PS area of Rayagada district and Vedanta Alumina in the Lanjigarhablock of Kalahandi districts. The three projects are in different stages ofcompletion. It interviewed people from nine project affected villages: Ramibeda,Kucheipadar, Kendukhunti, Bagrijhola, Doraguda, Maikanch (UAIL);Kopakhal, and Belamba (Vedanta Alumina); and Puhundi (Aditya Alumina),and the Vedanta resettlement site in Lanjigarha. It also met the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of Tikiri PS; the Collector, Rayagada district; and the ChiefSecretary and Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Orissa at Bhubaneshwar.

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I. The Three Projects

Utkal Alumina International Ltd (UAIL)UAIL was originally meant to be, in the

early 1990s, a joint venture between NorskHydro Alumina of Norway, the government-owned Indian Aluminium Company(INDAL) and Tata Industries Ltd. TataIndustries withdrew from the project andAlcan of Canada, one of the largestaluminium companies in the world, steppedin. Due to the continuous protests, NorskHydro also withdrew from the project in1997. Today, the Aditya Birla companyHINDALCO (one of India’s largestaluminium companies that had, in themeantime, bought over INDAL) andALCAN hold 55% and 45% shares in thisRs 4,500 crore project.

UAIL proposes to mine the bauxitefrom Baphlimali plateau (mali means hill)of Kashipur block, Rayagada district, whichhas bauxite reserves of 200 million tons. Thebauxite would be sourced through open-castmining and transported via a conveyor beltto a refinery at Doraguda vil lage ofKucheipadar some 22 kms away, where itwill be processed into alumina. Because ofprotests by local people, construction of therefinery has not yet begun even thoughsurveys had began in 1993. This refinerywould produce 1 million tonnes of aluminaper year in Phase I and another million tonper annum after expansion. (This,incidentally, is nearly double the aluminaIndia needs for its current rate ofconsumption, a need that is already beingmet by existing refineries.) There also areplans to construct a railway line fromDoraguda to Tikiri which will connect theKoraput-Rayagada railway line. Finally,the alumina wil l be transported by rail tothe port at Vishakapatnam, and beyond.

UAIL documents state that the projectwould be spread over an area of 2,446

hectares, i.e. roughly 25 sq km. Thisincludes the bauxite mining at Baphlimali(1,388 hectares); the conveyer belt corridor(77 hectares); the refinery and relatedinfrastructure (326 hectares), the pond ofred mud, a residue of the refining process(248 hectares), the ash pond from thecaptive power plant (137 hectares), theUAIL township (142 hectares); and finallythe railway corridor (128 hectares).

The designated red mud area and theash pond at Bagrijhola and Muchkuivil lages, and the plant fal l within thecatchment of Barha river. Waterrequirements for the construction of therefinery would be tapped from this river.The water needed for running the refineryonce it starts operations would be tappedfrom San river, with Barha river as asupplementary source if needed. To meetthe requirement of about 50 megawatts ofelectric power, a steam and coal-basedpower plant will also be installed.

The Infrastructure DevelopmentCorporation of Orissa (IDCO) acquired 872hectares of private land in 24 villages andhanded it over to UAIL on a lease basis forsetting up the alumina refinery and otherassociated facilities near Doraguda.

There are contesting claims andcounter-claims about how many people theproject will displace and how many it willaffect. UAIL claims that the project willdisplace only 147 famil ies from threevil lages - Dom Karal, Ramibeda andKendukhunti - and would affect people fromonly 24 villages. Norsk Hydro had put thenumber of Project Affected Persons (PAPs)at 750 famil ies. Prakrutik SampadaSuraksha Parishad (PSSP), which isleading the agitation in the area, claimsthat the Doraguda plant alone will directly

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affect 2,500 people living in 24 villages inKucheipadar, Hadiguda and Tikiripanchayats. Mining in Baphlimali wouldadversely affect another 2,500 families in42 villages in Chandragiri, Maikanch andKodipari panchayats. Other literature putsthe number of villages affected at 82. TheNorwegian Agency for Development’s

estimate puts it at 60,000 persons.

Clearly, there is no precise idea aboutthe number of affected people. This lack ofinformation is one of the characteristicfeatures of the project. Worse, as we shallsee in chapter 5, the official estimates leaveout a huge number of those who willobviously be affected in many ways.

Vedanta AluminaThis is a project of the UK-based

Vedanta Resources. The parent companyhas been entering India’s mineral sector bybuying over PSUs such as Hindustan Zinc,MALCO and BALCO. According to thecompany’s Detailed Project Report (DPR),the Rs 4,000 crore project at Lanjigarha inKalahandi district includes bauxite minesat Niyamgirimali (mali is a hill); a 1 mill ion-tonne alumina refinery; and a 75 mega-wattpower plant. The company plans to extract3 million tonnes of bauxite every year forabout 23 years through mechanized opencast mining. The water requirements of therefinery and power plant would be met bythe Vansadhara and Tel rivers. Theenvironmental clearance letter issued bythe Ministry of Environment and Forests,puts the water requirement at 30,000 cubicmetres per day, to be drawn from the Telriver.

The project would be spread over 1,073hectares in Kalahandi and Rayagadadistricts. According to IDCO (IndustrialDevelopment Corporation of Orissa), 601hectares of private land, 199.5 hectares ofnon-forest revenue land and 58.7 hectaresof forest land is required for the refinery.This land falls under the Lanjigarha andBatelima panchayats. Significantly, the

company is carrying on the construction ofits refinery without obtaining anenvironmental clearance for the entireproject and when the project’sEnvironmental Impact Assessment is stillpending with the Ministry of Environmentand Forests (see box Vedanta: Mining byHook or Crook).

According to the Deputy Forest Officer(DFO) Rayagada, total land requiredspecifically for mining is 722 hectares, ofwhich 313 hectares in Rayagada districtand and 409 hectares in Kalahandi district.In Kalahandi, 49 hectares is revenue land.Of the total area required for mining, asmuch as 93%, i.e. about 672 hectares, isforest land of the Niyamgiri forests.

The DPR puts the total population ofthe area affected at 12,623, with 48% tribaland 21% schedule caste. Around 360families of 12 villages would lose part oftheir land. The company has already got twovillages, Kinari and Bandhaguda vacated.The displaced families have been givencompensation and shifted to a resettlementcolony. The movement itself puts the figureof those who depend on the Niyamgiri forestand its streams and who would be adverselyaffected much higher: at around 30,000.

Aditya AluminaThis Hindalco project includes miningbauxite from Kodingamali, Lakshmipurblock, Koraput district and running arefinery at Kansariguda in distr ict

Rayagada. According to a company pressrelease, an MoU has been signed with theOrissa government in April 2005. It statesthat this Rs 11,000 crore integrated

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Vedanta: Mining By Hook or CrookThe story of Vedanta Alumina Limited’s bauxite mining and refinery project at Lanjigarh. is

one of deception and illegalities at every stage.The project comprises bauxite mining from Niyamgiri hills, a refinery for its

processing to produce alumina and a captive power plant. The company filed an applicationfor environmental clearance with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Governmentof India (MoEF) under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (EPA), only for the refinery.It did not seek clearance, required under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 (FCA), forthe mining of bauxite from Niyamgiri hills, which almost entirely affects forested areas.

On 22 September 2004, the MoEF grants environmental clearance to the aluminarefinery and captive power plant conveniently ignoring the fact that the ‘bauxite’ can beprocessed only after it is obtained from some source. Strangely, the MoEF’s clearanceletter states that the “source of bauxite for the alumina refinery will be the captive bauxitemines near Kalahandi and Rayagada districts”. It also ignores the fact that the nearestand most suitable source of bauxite is the Niyamgiri and Karlapat hills, both of which areknown for rich forests of extremely high biodiversity. The ministry also chooses tooverlook the fact that the clearance under the FCA and the Wildlife (Protection) Act,1972, for mining from these hills had not been obtained. The clearance granted for therefinery is not merely a simple lapse on the part of the ministry but a clear violation of thelaws of the land to favour an influential and powerful company.

Additionally, the MoEF letter granting environmental clearance for the refinery statesthat the “proposed area does not contain any forest land”. In its application, the companyhad lied saying that it required only 720 hectares of non-forest land, hiding the fact thatthe area required by the refinery included 58 hectares of forest land as well. This waslater ‘discovered’ by the government of Orissa. But instead of questioning the company,the government simply forwarded its application to MoEF for clearance of this land.

The matter does not end even here. The state government assigns the task offacilitating construction of the refinery to the Infrastructure Development Corporation ofOrissa, which begins construction of the refinery. Which means construction has beguneven though the environmental clearances for mining and also for the forest land requiredfor the refinery are both pending. The violations are manifold.

First, the MoEF handbook clearly states that in any project that involves both forestas well as non-forest land, work should not be initiated on non-forest land until release offorest lands under the FCA is approved by the central government. Second, it’s a violationof the EPA which stipulates that a project cannot be subdivided – in this case separatingthe mining from the refinery – in order to ease the clearance procedure. The company’sstrategy seems to be: first invest a huge sum in the construction and then make that a

Contd. on - page 5

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aluminium project will comprise bauxitemines with an annual capacity of 3 milliontons, an alumina refinery of 1 million metrictons per annum, an aluminium smelterplant of 2,60,000 tons per annum and acaptive power plant of 650 megawatts. Thesurvey of the mali was done about 8 yearsback and that of the villages which are goingto be affected, a couple of years ago.As per the company notices, four revenuevillages of Podapadi and Bakam gram

panchayat would be directly affected by theproject. Landowners of Podapadi, Puhundi,and Kansariguda of Podapadi grampanchayat would lose all their agriculturalland. Those of Phulajuba would lose 90% oftheir land. It is estimated that 369 familieswill be affected by the project, of which 93families of Kansariguda will also lose theirhomes or be displaced. This project beingat a very initial stage little more concreteinformation is readily available.

II. The Persistence of ‘Backwardness’The people facing displacement due to

these three bauxite mining projects, theirhopes and aspirations, fears andreservations, and their struggles anddemands, find few takers in the media. Howthis has come to pass can be seen directlyto stem from the lives and livelihood of

people in this region. There has been apersistent denial of conditions andopportunities for improving their wel l-being, and today, their struggle forcontinued existence is viewed as animpediment to Orissa’s ‘development’.

basis to pressurize the central government to grant clearance for mining from the forest land.The question that arises is: how did the company and the state government presume that thecentral government would grant clearance for mining? What then becomes apparent is thecollusion of the state and the central government in ensuring that the company is able to set upits project.

When some NGOs filed petitions against these violations, the Supreme Courtconstituted a Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to probe the matter. The CEC teamthat visited the area not only found these allegations to be true, but also detected otherirregularities. It found that the Orissa Mining Development Corporation had signed anagreement with Vedanta Alumina Ltd for long-term sale of bauxite extracted fromLanjigarha and Karlapat mines for being processed at Lanjigarh refinery without theapproval of the mining site and the refinery site from the Government of India. It alsorecommended action against the company for having cleared village forest land at theproject site, a violation of the FCA.

On 28 February this year, the CEC directed the MoEF to respond on issues includingthe validity of environmental clearance for the refinery, the reasons behind MoEF’saccepting the clearance application separately and the action it proposes to take. It issimply shocking that in spite of these violations and the probe, the construction of therefinery continues unabated. Finally, important and tactically useful as itsrecommendations can be, a CEC can only recommend, and it’s shocking how companiescan get away with numerous violations with impunity.

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The Region and its People1. Who are the people?

District ST (%) SC (%) Malkangiri 60.6 21.0 Koraput 56.5 12.9 Rayagada 62.8 13.9 Kalahandi 30.4 17.7 All Orissa 24.6 17.2

Village Kucheipadar 86.4 11.2 Bagrijhola 51.1 8.3 Dwimundi 47.2 47.2 Ramibeda 100.0 0 Koral 45.3 44.4 Puhundi 60.9 21.1 Podapadi 41.7 15.1

Note: Data covers rural areas only Source: Census of India, 2001

Situated at the junction of AndhraPradesh, Orissa and Chhatisgarh, theregion – which covers the districts ofKoraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, andKalahandi in southwestern Orissa – is hillywith wide valleys. Both the valleys and hillslopes are cultivated. In some places forestssti l l exist on the hil l s. This region isincredibly rich in mineral resources,particularly bauxite. Significantly, it alsohouses some of the poorest and sociallyweakest sections of the country’spopulation. In fact, over quite a few years,it has been in the news for starvationdeaths.

The region has a primarily tribalpopulation, and the two tribal communities,Kond and Paroja (Jhodia) togetheraccounting for over 60% of the population,while another 14% are dalits. In the villagesour team visited, tribal population rangebetween 45% and 100%. Dalits constituteover 40% in some villages (see table 1 ‘Whoare the people?’).

Population density is relatively low.Among scheduled tribes, the Paroja tribalsin Orissa inhabit only this region whileKonds constitute a larger tribal group andare more widely distributed across the state.In 2002-03, the Orissa government removedthe Paroja tribals using the Jhodia titlefrom the list of scheduled tribes. Peoplecontinue to refer to them collectively asParoja or Jhodia. But with this sleight ofhand, the government made it easier fornon-tribal private parties and non-triballanded interests to take over Jhodia lands.Another interesting aspect of the area’ssocial structure is the fact that of the 4.5lakh dalits living in rural areas of the oldKoraput district (present-day Malkangiri,Nabarangpur, Koraput and Rayagadadistricts), 3.5 lakh belong to those deemedthe lowest communities, the Doms and

Namasudras.

Very few people in the villages knowhow to read and write (see table 2. ‘LiteracyLevels’). Less than a quarter of Rayagada’spopulation is literate, and there are sharpdifferences across villages. For instance,

2. Literacy Levels Village Literates

(%) Kucheipadar 26.4 Bagrijhola 18.0 Dwimundi 18.3 Ramibeda 5.3 Koral 23.8 Puhundi 20.4 Rayagada Dist

24.4

Source: Census of India, 2001

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Kucheipadar has 26% literacy. In Ramibedavillage, where literacy is just 5.3%, a schoolexists, but the teacher is never available.People here attempted to get their childrenenrolled in a school in Kucheipadar villagebut the school refused to admit beyond itscapacity. In 1991, a decade earlier, literacylevels in the old districts of Koraput andKalahandi were 14% and 23.3%respectively. Of these literates, nearly 90%

were educated only up to middle school orless, with most not having studied beyondprimary school. Those who have studiedbeyond middle school comprise less thantwo per cent of the population in thesedistricts. If these are any indication of thedistribution of literates today, a largemajority of the population would be unableto find remunerative employment outsideof agriculture.

The Predominance of AgricultureLand forms the principal means of

subsistence in this region. In the rural areasof the four districts, self-cultivators andagricultural labourers jointly constituteabout 80% of the people engaged in workthrough the year (main workers, i.e. thosewho get work for at least 100 days a year).Among marginal workers (those engaged ineconomic activity for less than 100 days ayear), dependence on agriculture is higher- about 88%. This indicates most acutelyhow l ittle non-farm activ ity and

3. Working Population and Occupation District Working

Population Main

Workers in Total Workers

Cultivators in Main Workers

Agri Labour in Main Workers

Cultivators in

Marginal Workers

Agri Labour in Marginal Workers

Malkangiri 50.3 61.3 73.8 13.1 37.5 48.5 Koraput 51.5 58.4 49.7 26.7 17.2 70.5 Rayagada 50.6 60.0 43.4 34.3 14.3 73.3 Kalahandi 47.7 60.1 42.8 35.3 13.2 78.5 All Orissa 40.2 64.1 42.9 25.5 17.8 63.4 Villages Kucheipadar 59.5 72.1 75.7 16.8 62.4 29.9 Bagrijhola 48.3 48.8 88.1 0.9 64.2 16.5 Dwimundi 58.7 92.4 59.4 33.9 48.5 45.5 Ramibeda 57.9 80.0 65.9 29.5 63.6 36.4 Koral 54.3 71.8 74.3 5.3 1.9 5.6 Puhundi 56.7 39.0 46.3 45.2 3.7 96.3

Note: All figures are percentages. Data relates only to rural areas. Source: Census of India, 2001

employment there is in this region.Compared to the state average of 40%, halfthe people of this region work. Amongvillages we covered that figure is over 55%.Which means that in an average householdsize of about 5 members, three work, thattoo almost entirely in agriculture.

Women are engaged in a strikinglywide variety of work. Besides some forestseveryday, to collect saag, kendu, materialto make rope, seeyal, and wood for cooking.

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The availabil ity of work variessignificantly across villages. While mainworkers constitute 92% of all workers inDwimundi v il lage, their proportion inPuhundi village is below 40%, i.e. 60% ofthe workers in Puhundi get work for lessthan 100 days in a year (see table 3 ‘WorkingPopulation and Occuption).

The occupational distribution alsovaries across villages, related both to thecommunities residing in the village as alsothe ownership of land. Occupationaldistribution for SC and ST communitiesvaries significantly in this region as also inthe entire state. While both STs and SCsare mainly dependent on land, 89% of Domsand about 95% of Konds and Parojas workas cultivators or agricultural labour, Domsalso engage more in household industry andtrade. In all the villages we visited, fromthe small shops in the vil lage to thepeddling of goods on foot, Doms are largely

involved. This difference is also related todifferential landholdings. In general, dalitfamilies own lesser land in comparison toadivasi families and form a slightly largerproportion of the wage labour. Significantly,the social hierarchy also places the tribalabove the dalit (See table4 'Occupation bycommunity)

Agrarian Relations: Landholdings, Sharecropping and Labour

Cultivated land falls into two parts: theplain valley area and the hill slopes. Theownership of patta lands has seen littlechange since the colonial period, except thedivision of plots through growth in the sizeof families. In Ramibeda village the largestlandowning family of three brotherscontrols 32 acres according to a patta givenby the erstwhile raja. In Kendukhunti, thepredominantly Dom hamlet of Hadigudahas 15-20 families owning land while therest, about 30 families, are landless. InBagrijhola village, of the 150 houses, 3-4own about 100-150 acres of land each whilemost own between 1-1.5 acres and landlesshouseholds number 20-25. Of the 80households in Doraguda village, the site forthe alumina plant, 2-3 have 25 acres each,6-7 households are landless, and most own3-4 acres. In Maikanch village, where policeopened fire kil l ing three protestors in

December 2000, of about 400 households,there are 100-150 landless families. Thelargest holding, that of a Sahu, is 125 acres.In Kupakhal vil lage, situated close to themining site of Baphlimali, 110 of the 200families are Dom by caste. The Doms areall landless, as are 40 other households. Inthe main hamlet of Puhundi village, 120 ofthe 220 families are dalit while the rest areadivasi. Of the dal its 90 famil ies arelandless. The largest adivasi holding is 10-15 acres. Only 40% of the cultivated land isin the ownership of vil lage residents.Ownership of the rest is in the hands ofabsentee landowners from Cuttack,Bhubaneshwar and Puri. The former Rajaof Bastar still owns 30 acres and about 20acres are owned by the Talcher raja. Landreforms seem to have had little impact inthis village, or indeed in other villages wevisited.

4. Occupation by Community Occupation Kond Paroja Dom Cultivator 54.9 52.5 33.8 Agricultural Labour

39.6 43.2 45.3

Household Industry

1.4 1.0 7.9

Other 4.1 3.3 13.0 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: Census of India, 1991

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Ownership pattas exist mostly only forthe plain lands. In some villages, temporarypatta rights over dongar lands (hill tractson which agriculture is practised) wereregistered at the rate of one hectare perfamily in 1996 through a programme of theInternational Fund for Agricul turalDevelopment (IFAD). But this was not donefor every village. In Ramibeda village no onehad even heard of patta rights over thedongar lands. Generally speaking, the hillslopes do not have legally definedownership. This is partly because most ofthe dongar land has never beencomprehensively surveyed by governmentsover the years. And hill slopes above 10degrees incline have not been surveyed atall. Nor pattas given. Consequently, thosecultivating dongar pay a fine to thegovernment instead of a land tax, at the rateof Rs 50 instead of Rs 5 per acre each year.A sum they can ill afford, as we shall see.

A wide mix of crops are grown on theselands. The main kharif crop consists ofmaize, rice, bajra, kanda, and tomato. Onirrigated plots, a second crop of gram,mustard, masoor, and onion is sown.Dongar lands, though, have much lowerproductivity, require backbreaking workand support a single crop at best consistingof lower cereals and arhar dal. Crops withdifferent maturing periods are planted onthe same land. There are little by way ofinputs of fertilizer or pesticide. To maintainfertil ity the land is also left fallow afterevery two sowings. In addition to food crops,bamboo, used in house construction and forimplements, is grown on the edge of the fieldas also fruit trees such as mango, jackfruit,and l ichi. Oil seeds, mustard, somevegetables and onion are sold for cash. Thisis used to purchase necessities at the localhaat that the land cannot produce such askerosene, salt and clothes. There is littleother engagement with the market.

To get adequate food and earnings, afamily of five members requires around 2acres of irrigated land, or double thatamount if it is unirrigated. As can be seenfrom data collected during our visit, fewfamilies own such amounts of land. Forinstance, in Kashipur block of Rayagadadistrict, 65% of the households own lessthan a hectare of land, most of which isunirrigated. It is striking that in Rayagadadistrict 70 per cent of the families are belowthe poverty line (Orissa DevelopmentReport, p. 272).

This prevalence of landlessness orsmal lholdings, combined with lowproductivity on plains land, forced peopleto clear and cultivate dongars. Today, thereis virtually no new dongar land that can becleared for cultivation. What’s interestingis that there is little correlation betweenlandlessness and cultivation of dongarlands. Even those who have some land tendto cultivate dongar, to augment theirproduce.

Agricultural produce does not lastthrough the year for a large proportion ofthe people, a dire situation obviously facedmore acutely by those with less or no land.During the summer and early monsoonmany families make mango and jackfruit amajor part of their diet, conserving grainfor the period after the fruit season. Someare left with no grain and look for tubers inthe hil ls or else consume dried mangokernels and jackfruit seeds. In such asituation, loans, both in cash and in kind,become the only means for survival. Peoplealso resort to borrowings for marriages orto make market purchases. Those theyborrow from, especially food loans in grain,are usually from the same village. But thisis at steep rates of interest. One-and-a-halfkilograms of grain is to be returned after ayear for a loan of one kilogram of grain, i.e.50% interest. The interest charged by the

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moneylender in the local market is evensteeper - 5% per month, or approximately80% per annum, compounded. Formalsources of credit are rarely available sincethey require a valuable surety that fewpossess. In cases where a borrower is unableto pay back a loan taken within the village,it is usually repaid through unpaid labourperformed for the lender.

These inequalities in land distributionand low productivity has also resulted inother inequitable practices. For instance,having to work as agricultural labour. Ascan be seen from the table, this is thesituation of a large proportion of the peoplehere: 40% of the Konds, 43% of the Parojasand 45% of the Doms. Many also go out ofthe village to distant towns in search ofwork.

Labourers from the same village arepaid Rs. 25 a day along with one meal. Ifworkers from another village are employed,the daily wage is Rs.30. In the occasionalvillage, we heard of even lower wage ratesfor agricultural work. The wage paymentis often made in kind. In Belamba villagein Lanjigarh block, workers from the samevillage get 2 maunds of paddy or mandyaper day while outside labour demands 4maunds. Given the wage differentials, mostwage workers tend to belong to the samevillage. These rates of daily wages areobviously acutely insufficient, and alsobelow the stipulated minimum daily wageof Rs. 60 in Orissa.

Those without land also need to get intosharecropping arrangements. A single

landowning family is able to cultivate upto4-5 acres of land. Land above this amountis leased to sharecroppers from the samevillage. The sharecropping rate is half theproduce if the landowner supplies the seed.Else the sharecropper deducts the seedbefore handing over half the crop to thelandowner. In the case of absenteelandowners, as in Puhundi vil lage, theentire land is operated throughsharecropping. Dongar lands controlled bylarger landowners are also leased out forsharecropping.

These inequities certainly inform theagrarian set-up, but we got the impressionof some differences from mainstream ruralIndia. The repugnant practices of brutalcaste domination and loss of dignity do notseem to be as prevalent, and everyone worksthe fields.

To conclude, what is most obvious, onvisiting the region, is the extrememarginalization of most people, partly dueto near total dependence on a depressedagriculture, not particularly fertile land,and low irrigation facilities. This situationis worsened by inequitable land relations,extremely token and partial land reforms,and by extremely low educational levels andhealth care facilities provided by the state.It is in these social conditions that thesethree and other mining projects are beingpushed through. For those who have alwaysbeen marginalized, both historically and inthe present, these mining projects will onlyresul t in a further and differentmarginalization, as we shall see.

III. Small Carrot, Big StickA crucial aspect of initiating an

industrial project, particularly in scheduledareas, is informed consent by the people ofthe area. Instead, in villages covered by allthree projects – from the initial survey to the

land acquisition – the people have had to dealwith vagueness, lack of clear information,partial information, exaggerated promises,and the use of police terror. Essentially, thegovernment’s tactic was the time-tested

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policy of carrot and stick. Except that muchof the carrot remained imaginary; vague oralpromises of permanent jobs and largesalaries, made by the company and districtadministration. The stick, however, isanything but imaginary. From armed policeand para-military presence everywhere, flagmarches through peaceful tribal villages,beatings, threats, arbitrary warrants andarrests, to firing and killing of protestors­ theregions even remotely affected by thealumina projects live under the constant

shadow of the stick.The fact that, as the preceding chapter

makes clear, the region is among the mosteconomically backward in India, withvirtually non-existent health, education orirrigation facil ities, and hardly anyemployment opportunities outside oftraditional agriculture, crafts and smalltrade, made both the carrot and the stickall the more powerful. In fact, as we writethis report, news of continuing police terror,including attacks on a filmmakerdocumenting the resistance and furtherarrests trickles out of Kashipur.

The Dubious Process of Surveys, Consent and Land Acquisition(i) Statutory requirements for landacquisition:

The Land Acquisition Act 1894 laysdown specific procedures of consulting localpeople whose lands are going to be affectedby such projects. According to section 4, firsta notification of intent has to be publishedin the official gazette, and in twonewspapers, one of which needs to be in thelocal language, and the Collector ought toensure that the gist of these notificationsare displayed in the area to be acquired andin its vicinity. Anyone can then send his orher objections to the Collector within 30days (section 4 [1]). Only after theirinformed approval can the project proceed.Then the government can, based on theCollector’s report issue a notification ofacquisition, similar to the procedure insection 4 given above. The fourth step is thatthe Collector ensures the land is marked,land value gauged, and claims forcompensation heard, etc.

Regarding scheduled areas, thePanchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas)Act, 1996 (PESA) states that “the gramsabhas or panchayats at the appropriatelevel shall be consulted before making theacquisition of land in the scheduled areas

for development projects” (section 4 [i]). Itgoes on to empower the gram sabhas toprevent alienation of land in the scheduledareas and to take appropriate action torestore any unlawfully alienated land of ascheduled tribe (S. 4.[m].[3]).

The draft of the Orissa State Policy onResettlement and Rehabilitation of ProjectAffected People states that “projectauthorities will be responsible for publicconsultation, information disseminationand involving the affected people in thedecision-making process” (section 10.1). Itgoes on: “The areas for information sharing,consultation and participatory decision-making include: the relevant details of theproject; the resettlement plan and aspectsof the project impact, including choicesmade by the affected people regardingproject location” (section 10.2).

In reality these requirements have beenregularly flouted. As can be seen in thefollowing two subsections, the process ofland acquisition as we examined was sodifferent that it makes the above objectivesseem like a hollow joke. When this happensrepeatedly, it is not simply a lapse but

14

amounts to a serious violation of democracy.(ii) Secret surveys:

Right from the very beginning, thepeople who knew least about bauxite miningprojects were the very people who would beaffected the most, villagers whose homes,land, rivers, streams and forests would betaken away. Every time, everywhere, thesurveys happened through secrecy anddeceit. In numerous instances, we were toldof people not being informed about why aland or household survey was beingconducted in their area. This was obviouslydone to ensure that initial opposition to theproject is muted. In Ramibeda, one of thevillages going to be displaced by UAIL, thesurveyors, on being questioned by villagers,gave extremely vague answers. To carry outsurveys in such a fashion also violates theNational Pol icy on Resettlement andRehabilitation of Project Affected Families,2003.

In the neighbouring Kendukhunti, adalit village, the company played a crueljoke -  people were told in 1993 that thesurvey was for their children’s education.In a village with no school, where very fewchildren have ever seen the inside of aclassroom, naturally this was welcomed.Even when some machines were used for ageological survey of the lands, even theirfields, they were told their lands would notbe taken away. Then the people surveystarted, taking a detailed account of numberof persons, property, cattle, houses, etc. Theexcuse this time was that everybody is tobe issued land pattas, and the survey wasto that end. Slowly they realised that allthis was for UAIL’s mining operations. Atwhich point they then beat up somecompany people on their next visit. Thisgave the company and the districtadministration the excuse to bare theirfangs. So far, no government official had

visited the vil lage in connection with themining project. Now, the company got thepolice. Five villagers were arrested; this wasin 1998. After being held for almost 3months, they got bail from RaygadaMagistrate’s court. The case is still goingon against five persons from Kendukhuntiand two from another v il lage.Understandably, these arrests and thefrequent armed police visit to the villagesterrorized the people. It was almost as ifwhoever would publicly speak against thecompany would get arrested. It was in thisatmosphere of fear, the villagers were takento the tehsilder’s bungalow in Tikri, andforced to accept the compensation package.

In the case of the Vedanta Aluminaproject at Lanjigarha, residents of villageBelamba were informed of the project in2001 not by the government but by an NGO.The Collector came there only two yearslater, along with the tehsildar and thepolice, made usual promises of jobs andmoney, but failed to elicit consent.

To make things even worse, the surveyof project affected persons is al soperfunctory. There are instances of peoplebeing excluded simply because they werenot present in the village on the day of thesurvey, having gone away for workelsewhere, or for seasonal migrations, or forany variety of reasons. For instance, atRamibeda, nine families had left the villageafter being paid the first round ofcompensation. They were not counted asDisplaced Persons.

(iii) Consent by force and fraud:

The government seems to have wokenup quite late to its constitutional obligationsthat residents cannot have their landstaken away from them in Vth ScheduleAreas without their consent. In Kashipur(UAIL), palli (hamlet) sabha and gramsabha meetings were held in 2004, years

15

after compensation was first offered in 1996.And even these have been held in acompletely farcical manner.

At D. Karal, the pall i sabha which‘agreed’ to compensation by UAIL for theirland was held with the collector arrivingthere with 28 police vehicles and cordoningoff the whole village by the police. This palliincludes villages D-Karal (Upper Sahi andTala \ lower Sahi), Ghagra Khunti and GKaral. Apparently people only from the TalaSahi were present in the meeting but it wasclaimed that the entire palli has givenconsent. Generally, these pal li sabhameetings have been held in the armedpresence of 2-3 platoons of police, and noweven the Indian Reserve Battalion, scarcelya conducive situation for eliciting consentfreely and democratically. And at times, thepressure has been more direct. In villageBagrijhola, which will be affected by UAIL’sconveyor bel t (the bauxite rubbletransported from Baphl imali wil l bedumped here) and by the red mud pond, theCollector wrote thrice to the vil lagers in1998 saying, “If you don’t vacate the landand take compensation, we will acquire itforcefully.” Some people did indeed acceptthe compensation, not out of support for theplant but out of sheer fear of pauperization.These people are still there, working ontheir land, hoping the movement willsucceed and their land will stay with them.The money they had received is almost allgone, with nothing much to show for it.

In village Kendukhunti the collectorand the company made promises of jobswith wages starting from Rs. 3,000 to 10,000per month, allowance for the elderly andalternative housing in order to obtainapproval of palli sabha in November 2004.Not surprisingly, neither the authorities northe company have fulfil led these tallpromises. Consequently, about 300 villagersfrom Kendukhunti, Ramibeda, D Karal, and

Dwimundi, many of whom used to doconstruction work for UAIL stoppedworking and sat on dharna in April thisyear. They were demanding three lakhs peracres as compensation, 20 decimals of landfor their houses and a written agreementof giving jobs not to just the families nowbut to their children and grand children.They want that the job should pass downgenerations like the land.

The Aditya Birla project is in its initialstages. Surveys have been done and theformality of obtaining consent is on. Thegram sabha meeting for one of the twoaffected gram panchayats Podapadi, washeld in village Puhundi, on 17 March thisyear. The villagers, who received notice ofthat meeting only on 13 March 2005, wereasked to send in their written objections by15 March, the date of meeting. The villagerswere given just two days to file theircomplaints regarding something that isgoing to affect their entire future. The noticesimply had the village-wise break up of theland to be acquired and the number offamilies to be displaced or affected. It gaveno details of the project, which family wouldlose what, how much forest land would beaffected, which of the families would bedisplaced. At the meeting, residents wereasked to sign on blank paper, allegedly forattendance. The minutes of the meetingwere yet to reach the villagers when we metthem and the formal decisions of that sabhaare as yet unknown to them.

A similar constitutional requirement ofgetting consent in a Vth Schedule area ledto a meeting by the Orissa Pollution ControlBoard (OPCB) in village Phuljuba, of theother affected gram panchayat Bankam,Kashipur tehsil, on 27 November 2004. Thenotice of the meeting gave no details of theenvironmental threat posed by the projector of any study conducted by the OPCB, onthe basis of which people could give an

16

informed consent or otherwise. The minutesof the meeting ­contain responses to theproject by 18 people. Even those whowelcomed the project had some questionsand three expressed specific fears. But therewas no attempt to hear the views of theentire gathering or to have a vote. TheOPCB disregarded the fears expressed,concluded that people approve the projectand made some vague recommendations.The village representatives were made tosign the minutes, which were in English,

without explaining its contents.

What is significant is that the affectedpeople are never consulted, they are alwaystold. Their opinion is never sought prior tostarting work on the projects. The PUDRteam was struck by the fact that apart fromKuchiepadar, Puhundi was the only villagewhere we could see any papers related tothe project. In such a situation there ishardly any opportunity for the people tomake informed choices.

People’s ResistanceIn al l the three projects we

investigated, a majority of people feargetting displaced and losing their land andmeans of l ivel ihood. Not surprisingly,resistance began as soon as the implicationsof the surveys became clear. Importantly,this resistance has almost always had amilitant character: people have taken awaythe equipment of survey teams, chasedpolice away; chased away survey teams bythrowing water mixed with cow dung orbicchu– buti (a herb that causes irritation).At other times, barricades have been set upto prevent the entry of police and companyrepresentatives in the area. It’s thisdemocratic opposition that the currentpolice repression is seeking to undermineas the state attempts to push the projectsthrough.

In Kashipur (UAIL), people wereinitially helped by an NGO, Agragamee, inseeking information, in signaturecampaigns and legal assistance in casesslapped on protestors. In 1993, a team ofvil lagers met the then chief minister BijuPatnaik, demanding the project’scancellation. Villagers from the area alsoheld demonstrations against the arrest ofsome in false cases. In April 1994, when twoprotestors were arrested from Kucheipadar,a large number of people attacked the police

station and set them free. Following thispopular opposition, the gram panchayats ofKuchiepadar and Maikanch recommendedthe scrapping of the UAIL project in 1995.

The opposition to UAIL and othermining projects crystallized further with theformation of Prakrutik Sampada SurakshaParishad (PSSP) in February 1996, acollective of various groups in Kashipurarea resisting bauxite mining and relatedprojects. PSSP currently comprises sevensamitis in the region: Baphl imal iSurakshya Samiti, Maikanch; Gaon MatiSurakshya Samiti, Siriguda; SasubohumaliSurakshya Samiti, Khurigaon; AnchalikaSurakshya Samiti, Srunger; BasundharaSurakshya Samiti, Barigaon; BankamSurakshya Samiti, Puhundi; and SunatheiSurakshya Samiti, Baghrijhola.

The organization’s understanding hasevolved into a rejection of ‘development’through industrialization for the region.They argue that since people there arelocated in a primarily agriculture-basedeconomy, they will only benefit with thedevelopment of agriculture. Which includesimproved irrigation facilities to enablepeople to grow two crops a year, betteragricultural practices and re-forestation. Ithas also demanded better educational andhealth services in the region.

17

But their central issue of mobilizationhas been the opposition to the miningprojects. In September 1996, the PSSP leda ral ly from Kuchiepadar to Tikiri andgheraoed the office of UAIL. In July 1997,protestors demolished a half-constructedresettlement colony at Dom Karal and setup barricades at Kuchiepadar to stop entryof the company people and the police. Ahuge padayatra was organized in late 1998and 1999 to coordinate opposition to thethree projects. In May 2000, the creation ofa helipad at Tikiri was prevented

The people have also resisted themanipulation of publ ic opinion bymainstream political parties and otherelites. One such act of resistance led to thetragic firings at Maikanch on 16 December2000, in which three protestors were killed(see box: Bullets of Development). Four daysafter the firing, a huge gathering of localtribals organized a road block at Rapkanachowk. The next month, a protest marchwas held, from Maikanch to Kashipur. Inwhat has become an important symbolicprotest on the death anniversary of thosekilled, a programme is held in the area each16th December. PSSP finally managed to getthree FIRs registered against the police inOctober 2004, nearly four years later!

Widespread as the resistance is, theopposition to the projects is not universal.Following the recent four-fold increase incompensation some are opting for itresulting in resentment by some others whoare still holding out. This caused temporarytensions in September last year with someresidents of Kucheipadar and Bagrijholacutting the crop of v il lagers fromKendukhunti and Ramibeda. Though thevillagers are now willing to let bygones bebygones, the administration is blowing itout of proportion. It is using this “violence”to justify increased police presence in thearea.

Any new tensions are exacerbated byan already existing lack of harmonybetween a section of adivasis – who are thepredominant landowners here – and theDoms and other dalits, many of whom doagricultural labour. We were told that someamong the latter buy small forest producefrom the adivasis and sell it, leading to someresentment about the small profits theyearn.

Three, in an agricultural scenario oflow productivity and pathetic wages, thosewithout land or with marginal holdings tryto earn some money through project-relatedwork that is going on, such as roadconstruction. Some of them regard thosewith the movement – the ‘sangrami’ – as athreat to continued employment in case theproject is terminated.

The movement has its basepredominantly among the landed, small asthey are. The absence of issues such as landreforms and low agricultural wages on theagenda has meant has meant thatwidespread support from the landless islacking. Whereas the fact is that theseprojects will affect both landed and thelandless, though to a varying extent, andin different ways.

Having said the above, it is importantnot to miss out some of the movement’sachievements. The very fact that the projecthas been delayed by so many years is oneachievement of the people in the area. It isonly due to the continuous protest by theadivasis and dalits of the area that NorskHydro was forced to withdraw from theUAIL project in 1997. Even the four-foldincrease in compensation, mentioned above,is a consequence of the resistance. A UAILdocument says so in so many words: “Dueto the resistance of the anti project localvillagers it [the company] was unable to getpossession of the acquired land. Afterconsultation with the Government of Orissa

18

and based on their advice, UAIL agreed topay additional amounts as ex-gratia to theProject Affected People for getting thepossession of the land.’

Opposition is growing againstVedanta Alumina in Kalahandi as well.The resistance there is under the bannerNiyamgiri Surakhya Samiti (NSS). Formedin 2001, NSS has spread across 12 villages,in the face of considerable pol iceharassment.

In March 2003, around 700 adivasisgathered in Muniguda town to protestagainst the project at a public hearing held

by Orissa Pollution Control Board. Theywere not allowed to go inside the room bythe company goons and the police, still theyforced the ADM to accept 11 affidavits andseveral petitions voicing their opposition.In April 2004, about a thousand tribalsmarched to Lanjigarha. Thirteen activistswere arrested and released on bail only inMay.

What is striking is again is itsconsistently militant character. A secondaspect of the resistance to all three projectsis the high involvement of women,particularly in facing the pol ice and

contd. - on page 17

Bullets of Development: The Road to MaikanchThe attacks on people protesting the UAIL project reached a flashpoint on 16 December

2000, when the police fired upon adivasis in Maikanch village of Kashipur block killingthree and injuring many more.

Evidently, exaggerated promises, harassment, false cases and police terror were notdeemed enough to tip the scales in favour of the project. A pro-mining ‘movement’ wasbuilt, under the aegis of the company, the administration and police. We were told that thispro-mining lobby comprises: functionaries of mainstream political parties, the Congress,BJP and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD); other local elites; paid goons; a section of the media.Some poor tribals form the numbers, some among them misled by promises or bought overby alcohol or cash. There have been instances of scuffles between the pro-mining lobbyand the anti-mining agitators.

The Maikanch firing occurred in the context of an all-party committee meeting infavour of the project, to be held in Nuagaon village on 15 December 2000. UAIL and anNGO, Care International, had handpicked members of this committee. These includedrepresentatives of various pro-project parties such as BJD, BJP and Congress. But thecommittee along with some officials could not reach the meeting place because residents ofMaikanch, Kucheipadar, Bagrijhola and other villages had put up barricades on the roadleading to Maikanch to prevent the meeting from taking place. When the officials tried tobreak the barricade and move ahead, they were forcibly stopped by the agitators. Thesepro-project people were compelled to return to Rayagada. Subsequently, cases of assaultwere registered against the agitators.

The next day, at around 11 am, three platoons of police personnel (about a hundred),reached Maikanch ostensibly to prevent clashes between the pro- and anti-company peopleof the village. We were told that the police inquired about five youths including PrakashJodhia of Maikanch and threatened that they would open fire if these five were not handed

19

resisting the entry of authorities and thecompany representatives in their area. Wecame across another such instance inBelamba village (Vedanta). Sometime lastyear, a huge police force raided some housesin the village ostensibly against the illegalproduction of liquor. People from here feelthe police had come to terrorise them so thatthey stop opposing the project. Thevillagers, with the women in the forefront,chased them away.

Support and sol idarity for the

movement is growing in the area andbeyond. In December 2004, a number of leftparties and organizations, including a frontincluding CPI(M L), CPI(ML-NewDemocracy), CPI(ML-Red Flag), SamajwadiJanparishad, Loka Pakhya –under thebanner Deshapremi Jana Samukhya issueda joint appeal against the ongoing policerepression, together with the PSSP. TheBahujan Samaj Party too has been veryactive in the area mobilizing against theproject. Dharnas were organized against

over. Women had gathered in front and they did not let the police enter the village. The CircleInspector kept issuing threats every few minutes. He pushed an old woman and threw herdown. She fainted and remained unconscious for some time. Some other women were hitwith lathis. Hearing the cries of women, the men came out. It is at this point that the police,ordered by the executive magistrate, opened fire. People began to run away in fear towardsthe surrounding hills. Firing continued for about half an hour. In all, nineteen rounds werefired on the retreating people, killing three: Damodar Jhodia, Anhilas Jhodia and RaghunathJhodia. Eight others were injured.

The police claimed that they resorted to firing because the adivasis pelted stones onthem and attacked them. They say the Circle Inspector and a driver of a jeep were seriouslyinjured by arrows and that the DSP was hit by a stone. They also claimed that the adivasiswere under the influence of alcohol, though the post mortem report of the 3 killed showed nosign of liquor.

Following intense protests in the area immediately after (despite the fear that crept in),an inquiry commission, under Justice P K Mishra, was set up to investigate the firing. In itsreport submitted in January 2004, it concluded that there was no need for such a large policecontingent to enter the village that day and that “grossly excessive force had been used”. Itbasically suggests that the firing was unwarranted. He blamed the then SP Rayagada, Y.K.Jethwa, DSP KN Patnaik, Officer-in-Charge, Kashipur, Prava Shankar Naik, and the executivemagistrate Golak Chandra Badajena for their role in firing, and one Subhash Swain forassaulting two tribal women. Curiously, no FIR was filed against the guilty officials. It wasonly on 19 October 2004 that PSSP managed to file three FIRs about the Maikanch firingagainst the police at Tikiri PS.

In one of its more significant observations, the Commission’s report attributed theescalation of tensions to the large armed police presence in this predominantly tribal area.But the number of guns or policemen wielding them has not gone down. If anything, theyhave since intensified. Visits by police or IRB personnel with automatic weapons are a regularoccurrence in most villages. The anxiety in the villages is palpable. Another Maikanch justwaiting to happen.

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the World Mining Congress held in Delhiin November 2003, and again in Marchearl ier this year. A dharna was alsoorganized by a solidarity group in Mumbaiin May this year in front of Hindalco’s office,

the company involved in two of these threeprojects. And the group Alcan’t has beensystematically campaigning for some yearsnow opposing the entry of Alcan intoKashipur.

State ResponseOn the journey from Rayagada town to

Kashipur, one is struck by the number ofguns one sees. The area has anunexpectedly large number of armedpolicemen, including Indian ReserveBattalion (IRB) personnel, a special policebranch. In an area that desperately needsmore schools and healthcare facilities,money is being spent on a new police outpostat Doraguda near D.Karal village.

The repression in Kashipur andLanjigarha has intensified in recentmonths. Even in the darkest days of theMaikanch firing, there was not the constantpolice presence and harassment that peoplethere have been experiencing over the last8-9 months. The government has decidedto get these projects off the ground andclearly they intend to ram them downpeople’s throats. If the people don’t avail ofthe carrots, they get the stick.

The administration used the excuse ofthe misguided attack on the villages ofRamibeda and Kendukhunti by people fromKucheipadar mentioned above to increasetheir presence in the area even more thanearlier. Also, cases of trespass and dacoitywere filed against 71 people, and againstRatan Jhodia, Purna Jhodia and 70 othersfor the attack on Ramibeda andKendukhunti.

Police harassment has intensified since1st December 2004. On that day, about 300adivasis and dalits held a protest againstthe setting up of a police post and barracksat D. Karal near Kucheipadar. It was beingset up against the express wish of theirpanchayat, in an area that has little history

of crime and there’s already a police stationnot far away, in Tikiri. Significantly, thispolice post is set on land already acquiredby the company. Some we spoke to allegedthat the food for the camping policemencomes from the company. It seems that eventhe farce of state neutrality is not neededany more.

The protestors were attacked by thepolice led by the District Collector P KMeherda and the Superintendent of PoliceSanjay Kumar. Protesters had tear gasshells fired at them, they were verballyabused, and lathi-charged. At least 16persons, mainly women, were injured in theunprovoked attack. Numerous eyewitnessesallege that the police Officer-in-Charge(OIC), Tikiri PS, K C Mund publ iclythreatened to rape adivasi women if theycontinued to resist the company. This in thepresence of his superiors. Bizarrely,eighteen protestors were arrested. Cases ofrioting (section 147, IPC) armed with deadlyweapons (S. 148), and other sections of theIPC (S. 149, 332, 236, 237, 506, 186, and294 IPC) and S. 7 CrPC, and S. 27 ArmsAct - some of the protestors were there withtheir traditional bows and arrows – wereslapped against 9 named and unnamedothers in Tikiri PS.

Two activists of PSSP, whom our teammet in Rayagada lock-up, had been arrestedin February 2005 when they were comingout of a local bank having withdrawn Rs20,000 for organizational work. The moneywas taken from them and no receipt given.Through the last year there have been atleast six criminal cases registered againstthose who oppose the UAIL project. Those

21

arrested stay at least a month in jail sincethe district court routinely refuses bail.While the pol ice claim that they areimpartial, and their presence is just tomaintain peace between the anti-miningand pro-mining groups, the fact of thematter is that only those protesting againstthe UAIL project are being arrested.

The police are targeting not just PSSP’sactivists, but also, as they commonly do, itsmass base. Intimidation of the people atlarge by the police and the Indian ReserveBattal ion (IRB) increased substantiallyafter this incident. Before the anniversaryof the Maikanch firing, police went aroundthe villages threatening people againstattending the programme. On that day, theyblocked the main entry points of Maikanch,Dasmantpur and Tikiri. A delegation thatincluded two MLAs from Left parties wereprevented from attending by detainingthem at Tikiri.

There has been large-scale deploymentof pol ice and IRB forces, firings, flagmarches by the armed forces in the villages,arresting people under false charges,forcing the people to accept compensation.We were told in more than one village thatpolicemen from Tikiri PS routinely raidvillage haats in search of people from theprotesting vil lages claiming they arewanted in one criminal case or another. InKashipur, it’s a crime to merely hold anopinion against UAIL, let alone refusing togive up one’s land and l ivel ihood ororganising democratic protests. We weretold that the police have been forcing peopleto give in writing that they will not oppose

the company. The sarpanch of Maikanchvillage was threatened with arrest warrantson him and his villagers and pressured intogiving a written declaration to the policepromising not to oppose the mining project.

And it’s not just the police. Numerouspeople complain that criminal elementshired by the police have been threateningpeople. There’s no way to confirm some ofthis independently, but it’s very plausible.In April 2003, a local dalit leader wasarrested for ‘instigating local tribals’. Whenpeople went to Lanjigarha to enquire abouthim, they were attacked by company goons.More recently, it has been alleged that somegoons were responsible for the killing of anactivist of the Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti,Sukru Majhi, in Lanjigarha. There needsto be an independent enquiry into his deathto ascertain the facts

Rather than respond holistically to theissues people are raising, the state responsehas been one of suspicion and repression.One increasingly alarming aspect of thefrayed nature of Indian democracy is howvaried kinds of people’s movements arebeing viewed and dealt with as law-and-order problems. Earlier, it used to be mainlyMarxist-Leninist parties, even their frontorganizations, which used to be dealt withbrutally. Over the last 10-15 years, thathostility is being extended to all kinds ofmovements; in fact, some are branded‘Naxalite’ – as if that is by itself a term ofpolitical abuse – and repressed. The scarypart is it’s become so commonplace that onehas begun to expect nothing else.

IV. Why Mining: Orissa’s Industrial Policy andAluminium

The depressed state of agriculture andlow income levels in the region discussedin chapter 2 are reflected in and in turn

impact the level of industrialization andpattern of industrial development thatunfolds. Orissa’s industrial development

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has remained concentrated around a fewtypes of basic industry. As of the latenineties, over 80 per cent of value addedand nearly 60 per cent of industrialemployment in the state came from justthree types of industry: electricity, basicmetals and al loys, and non-metal l icminerals. Even these and the presence ofnatural resources have not resulted indiversification into related industry such asengineering goods (just 3% in terms of valueadded), chemicals (less than 1 per cent), foodproducts (4%) and wood products (0.21%).And although agriculture dominatesOrissa’s economy in terms of employmentand state domestic product, agro-basedindustry has not taken off (just 4% of valueadded).

There certainly was considerable stressplaced on small enterprises in the 1980s.This resulted in a sharp increase in thenumber of firms (a 4-fold increase), incapital invested (6 times) and employment(4-fold) as compared to the 1970s. But eventhis industrial growth was concentrated inthe coastal districts that has historicallybeen the more advanced region withinOrissa. Of Orissa’s 13 districts at the time,Cuttack, Puri and Ganjam districtscornered nearly 40 per cent the number ofunits and nearly half the capital invested.Although a number of units were set up inrural areas, the economically backwarddistricts of Bolangir, Koraput, Mayurbhanj,Kalahandi, etc, gained little. (PlanningCommission, Orissa Development Report2002 [ODR], p. 212). And even this growthof small industry was allowed to taper offin the 1990s.

The non-coastal districts remainoverwhelmingly dependent uponagriculture. Hence, it’s only with a radicalrestructuring of land relations andadequate surplus income from agriculture,

that demand for industrial products orservices can be generated. But in fact therehas been, since the early 1970s, a sharpgrowth in agricultural labourers withdepressed wages, a decline in agriculturalincome per worker compared to othersectors, and continued predominance ofsmall and marginal farms. Most farmers inold Koraput district barely grow enough tofeed themselves through the year. All thisis a situation scarcely conducive togenerating the growth of local business orservices sector in the area.

Instead of addressing these issuesfrontal ly, government industrial izationstrategy seems to be one of setting up bigprojects that target the state’s mineralwealth. These capital-intensive projects willhave very limited gains for people from thisregion. Yet, this is being reportedcompletely uncritically. Witness the gleewith which the 12-million-ton steel plantinvestment in Orissa – proclaimed aspotentially the largest single foreign directinvestment ever in India – by the Koreancompany Posco is being reported in theentire business press.

The primary objective listed in Orissa’sIndustrial Policy 1996 is “harnessingOrissa’s vast natural resources”. To mentionjust a few kinds, it possesses 1,733 mill iontonnes, nearly sixty per cent of India’sknown bauxite reserves, i.e. bauxite thathas already been identified and can beexploited economically. It also possesses awhopping 51 billion tonnes of coal (a quarterof India’s reserves) which is essential inpower generation and in making steel. Andfor good measure, Orissa possesses a goodchunk of some other mineral reserves inIndia as well – chromite (98%), iron ore(28%), nickel ore (92%), manganese (28%),mineral sand (30%), and two-thirds ofIndia’s graphite and pyrophylite (Govt. of

23

Orissa, Orissa Reference Annual 2003, p.40).

Economic liberalization has meant twomajor differences in mining, from the past.One, the privatization of public enterprises.For instance, within aluminium, Balco’scontroversial sale to Vedanta Resources. Orwitness the current pressure over thepossible privatization of NALCO, India’slast major aluminium public company. Thishas meant greater access of privatecompanies to mining resources and, withinaluminium, the concentration of aluminiummining in the hands of just a few majorplayers. And second, the opening of India’smineral reserves to foreign companies.Orissa has always witnessed lowemployment relative to capital invested(ODR, p. 207); this will worsen with greatermechanization that foreign multinationalcapital tends to bring in.

In Orissa, work on mining projectsworth Rs 30,000 crore has already begunand further proposals worth over Rs110,000 crore are in the pipeline, mainly insteel, alumina and power. Projects alreadyunderway or in the pipeline include thePosco steel project, a 6-million ton Tata steelplant at Duburi in Jajpur district, VedantaResources’ investment in alumina and steel,a 4-million ton project by Ruia’s Essar Steel,besides the Alcan (UAIL) and Hindalcoprojects discussed in this report.

Not just can these and other companiesaccess Orissa’s mineral resources, they cando so cheaply. As states begun to get greatersay in investment policy, they have beencompeting with each other in bending overbackwards to make their states moreattractive for investment. In two ways: inmaking it cheaper to invest, and bypromising ‘labour reforms. Consequently,Orissa’s industrial policy pardons entry taxfor ‘mega’ projects for a number of years.

Industrial estates, industrial areas, parks,growth centres, etc are excluded frommunicipal and other local taxes if they agreeto maintain the infrastructure (Orissa’sIndustrial Policy 2001, section 18.6). Wateris provided at half the rates for five years(section 19.1.i). And like numerous otherstates, Orissa too has categorized someareas as Special Economic Zones, which itdefines as “duty free enclaves … withexemption from customs duties, and a moreliberal regime regarding other levies”(Policy on SEZs, 2003, section 1.2). Thispolicy also exempts industry from paymentof electricity duty/tax for twenty years(section 5.2), and exempts goods purchasedby SEZ units from entry tax (section 8.2).

Regarding ‘labour reforms’, Orissa’sindustrial pol icy is horribly blatant. Itpromises (section 22) to amend chapter 5A,5B and 5C of the Industrial Disputes Act(pertaining to lay-offs, retrenchment andclosures of industry) to “make processes oflay-off, retrenchment, lock-out easier forundertakings employing less than 1,000persons (which apply to all undertakingsemploying 300 persons under existing law).This has been one of the most stridentdemands by capital for some years now.Export-oriented units (which include UAIL,Vedanta, etc), those in Special EconomicZones, in IT, biotechnology etc will beexempt from the working hours limitationsof the Factories Act. These, and agro- andmarine-based processing units, have beendeclared ‘public util ity services’, hencelimiting the rights of workers to strike andtake other industrial action. Thiscombination of hand-outs, i.e. public funds,to industry and handicapping workers’rights simply loads the dice strongly infavour of capital.

Can such a developmental strategyreally work? But before we address this

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question, we need to address issues thatpertain specifically to aluminium and itsuses. Simply put, are the UAIL, Vedanta,Aditya Alumina and other impending

aluminium projects really necessary? Andfor whom? It is to these questions that wenow turn.

Aluminium: Whence it Came, Where it GoesAluminium production consists of three

process: mining the bauxite, refining thebauxite to alumina, and smelting aluminato make aluminium. Typically, in India,producing a ton of aluminium needs twotons of alumina and each ton of aluminaneeds three tons of bauxite. These processesare inexpensive in India compared towestern and international standards.That’s thanks to multiple factors: much ofIndia’s bauxite – such as the ore inRayagada – is gibbistic (less impure), whichtranslates into lower power consumption insmelting, and power is the single highestcost in manufacture; two, the bauxite isclose to the surface, which makes accesseasier and cheaper. Then there’s thecomparatively low cost of electricity; andcrucially, labour is cheap. Mining bauxitein India costs a quarter of the worldaverage, and producing the aluminium is25-30% cheaper according to a director ofVedanta.

Huge bauxite reserves, one billion tons,were unearthed in Orissa and contiguousparts of Andhra Pradesh in 1995, whichmade India a fairly significant player in thebauxite and aluminium market worldwide.India currently has about 3 billion tons ofknown bauxite reserves, the fifth largest inthe world, nearly 60 per cent of it in Orissa.India’s aluminium production – over 7 lakhtons in 2003 – already comfortably meetsdomestic demand and in fact 1.65 lakh tonsare currently exported. However, India’saluminium demand – 6 lakh tons in 2004,or 0.6 kg per person – is lamented byindustry as being too low by worldstandards: it’s 15 kg annually in Japan, and

25-30 kg per person in the US and Europe.

And how does Indian aluminiumactually get consumed? The movementalleges that aluminium is used hugely indefence weaponry and aircraft, here andabroad. Surely there can be nothing moresocially useless than weaponry, and it needsto be asked why Kondh tribals in Kashipurwill have their lives turned upside downbecause India wants to control the Siachenglacier or because the United States wantsto bomb Iraq.

The uses of aluminium are actuallymuch more varied, such aluminium cans,wire, utensils, transport, etc. What’s moreimportant is the class bias in consumption,which the figures above paper over.Domestic consumption has been risingsharply, mainly in automobiles (currentlynearly a fifth of India’s aluminium goes intransport), consumer durables (12%) andpackaging. Domestic demand is expected torise 7-10 per cent annually, to about amillion tons by 2010. The president of theAluminium Association of India recentlyidentified three main growthareas:”automobiles, electrical wiring, andfood packaging”. These areas reflect urban,elite consumption lifestyles, which took offin India in the 1990s. It is this that needsto be questioned, for urban consumption isincreasingly impacting upon communitiesand resources in rural areas.

In the coming years, a lot of aluminiumwill also be exported: it’s expected to jumpsix-fold to about a million tons a year by2010. The alumina output from UAIL aloneis nearly double the alumina India needs

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for its current rate of consumption, a needthat is already being met by existingrefineries. In fact, much of the output ofthese three projects will be exported.Hypothetically, exports by itself are not aproblem, but again they have this eliteconsumption bias. It’s simple: goods gowhere the money is. It’s hardly new. WhenNALCO started smelting in Angul districtin Orissa in 1987, half its output went toFrance. This will intensify with the greaterentry of huge foreign companies, for theyfacil itate deeper l inks to globalizedproduction processes and markets. Andwhat is the global consumption pattern?Over half the aluminium worldwide and inthe developed world is consumed by thepackaging industry and transportation(GOI, Ministry of Mines, Press Release, 4April 2003). Transport consumes a lot ofaluminium in the developed world becauseof the quite widespread dependence on carsin particular and also on aircraft.

Some of the apprehensions beingexpressed about the Posco deal are thatmining is the worst sector for foreigninvestment since minerals are exhaustible.Once the mineral ore get exhausted, thecompanies up and out, leaving the area withno resources any more, little gains to showfor it, and polluted waste to deal with.

In a globalized world and with Indiancapital coming of age, what also matters iswho actually controls people’s resources,who pays the costs and who benefits. In fact,the fundamental question is not just one ofaluminium, but what trajectory ofdevelopment can benefit the people. Evenwithin a capital ist trajectory, two pre-conditions need to be met before whichtapping natural resources can conceivablybenefit people. One, that they have theeducational and social skills to get well-paid

jobs in such industry. And two, that theypossess the income to consume the outputfrom such industry if they need to. The twofactors are linked. Chapter 2 makes itamply clear that both these conditionssimply do not exist in the regions we visited,in which bauxite mining is currentlyplanned.

To which a question is sometimesposed, what about people elsewhere? Don’tthey need aluminium? Any opposition to amining project elicits the query, “Are youanti-mining”? Or sometimes, depending onwhat is being debated, the question is,“Aren’t you being anti-development?” as ifthe concept is class and gender neutral.‘Development’ is not just a concept anymore, it’s become an ideological garb thathides the cornering of people’s resourcesincreasingly by private capital. The fact isthat we need to question every singleindustrial project as to whether they areactually socially necessary, because theyconsume enormous resources that couldpotential ly be put to better use. Forinstance, producing a single ton ofaluminium needs 17,500 kilowatts of power(Dept of Mines, GOI, Annual Report 2000)and enormous volumes of additional water.The water for constructing the UAILrefinery would be tapped from the Barhariver nearby. The water needed for therefinery once it starts regular operationswould be tapped from San river. In times oflean flow, Barha’s water will be used as asupplementary source. The MoEF has putthe water requirements for the VedantaAlumina refinery at 30,000 cubic metres ofwater every single day. And all this is tosay nothing of the land being taken over.All these projects have enormous costs. Andsome of these costs are nowhere part of thecalculations, as we shall in the next chapter.

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V. The Myth of RehabilitationInherent Flaws in the Rehabilitation Policy

The government of Orissa does not asyet have a comprehensive rehabilitationpolicy. The Chief Secretary, and theAdditional Chief Secretary Govt of Orissa,in a meeting with our team, presentedcertain broad parameters that are beingfollowed in the projects underway. Thereare two categories of people affected:displaced people (DPs), those who lose theirhomes. Of these every household is entitledto employment, “subject to availability andskill”. Those who can will be trained, thosewho can’t will get unskilled jobs, but thejobs are at best one per household, and giventhe qualification above, it is clearly notmandatory. More importantly, given howcapital intensive projects like these tend tobe, it is not assured. They will also gethousing in rehabil itation sites, somespecifics of which are given below.

The second category is of ProjectAffected Persons (PAPs), i.e. those who losetheir lands or parts of their lands, to whomcompensation will be paid, but to whom nojobs will be given. The UAIL document saysPAPs would be given preference in jobs,after DPs in the order of priority, but againthis is subject to availability and skill .Though a certain preference is mentionedwithout any commitment being made evenabout one job per household.

These officials then said that a surveyis needed to freeze the list of DPs and PAPsso there is no dispute or fraudulent claimsby people later. They also said that thedefinition of project affected peoples cannotbe extended beyond a point. The UAILRehabilitation and Resettlement Package,“approved by the Revenue Dept, Govt ofOrissa, on 24 November 2004”, follows thesetwo broad classifications. Within DPs, “ason over 18 years old, irrespective of marital

status” is counted as a separate family (PartA, a), but “all unmarried brothers andsisters whose parents are not alive shallconstitute a separate family” (Part A, e). (Inthis regard, it follows section 3.1.j of theNational Policy on Resettlement andRehabilitation of Project Affected Families2003, which states that “ ‘family¹ meansProject Affected Family consisting of suchpersons, his or her spouse, minor sons,unmarried daughters, minor brothers orunmarried sisters, father/mother and othermembers residing with him and dependenton him for their livelihood”.) In addition,going by the UAIL package, each displacedfamily will be given 1/10th of an acre forhomestead purposes, pucca houses of 480sq feet, with facilities. And both DPs andPAPs are eligible for ‘land for land’ to theextent government cultivable land isavailable. But in none of the villages wevisited has land for land actually beenoffered.

The Detailed Project Report (DPR) ofthe Vedanta project at Lanjigarha mentionsno such thing as land for land. Thosedisplaced would get homes of 400 squarefeet with asbestos roofs and brick walls and10 decimals land on which these houseswould be built. The resettlement colonywould also have a school, a PHC, a tubewellfor every 15-20 families, a well and 2-3 acresfor a burial ground.

1. Is Land for Land Actually Viable?The ‘land for land’ issue had come up

regarding the UAIL project way back in1993. The PSSP later questioned this offeron two grounds: that ‘land’ by itself had nomeaning, unless the land in exchange wasan exact equivalent. And two, that the landto be given in compensation would beacquired by dispossessing other people like

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those getting already dispossessed here,and hence was hardly a solution.

Be that as it may, does surplus landreally exist for it to be a viable R&R option?Already, the pressure upon land has meantthat agriculturists in this area have beentill ing dongar land for years. The ADMRayagada told earlier PUDR team thatvisited the area in 2002 that no agriculturalland was available in the area to ensure that‘land for land’ is implemented. In Ramibeda,we were told that the pressure upon landhas meant that forests have been denuded,and dongar cultivation is the only means ofsustenance for numerous landless andmarginal farmers. Given that, is it realisticto expect that a significant amount ofalternative land exists for those who willlose their lands now? These three projectsaside, what of the numerous other miningprojects that the Orissa government plansto initiate in the near future? And regardingirrigated land that will be lost to the project,how is the government to ensure that thequality of any conceivable alternative landapproximates that being lost now? Giventhe above, it is hardly surprising thatnowhere in our meeting with the ChiefSecretary and other senior stategovernment officials did the issue of ‘Landfor land’ come up. It cannot be a serious partof rehabilitation here because it simply doesnot exist to any significant degree. UAIL issimply trying to pull a fast one.

2. The Problems of Compensation:The UAIL policy document lays down

several rates of compensation for elevendifferent categories of land depending ontheir qual ity, such as Atta land (Rs1,00,000/ acre); Mala land (Rs 1,20,000/acre); Berna (Rs 1,30,000/ acre), Bahal land(Rs 1,50,000/ acre), etc. Most of the rateswe heard about fel l within these 3-4categories mentioned.

The compensation package ignores

those who currently cultivate dongar land,and they constitute a fair number amongthe people affected. As mentioned in chapter2, given the low productivity of regularagricultural land, even those with someland are dependent on dongar cultivationfor their sustenance. Additionally, in all thevillages our team visited, the proportion oflandless was at least 25 per cent, and it wentup to over half in some hamlets such asKendukhunti. For those landless whosehouses are not being displaced, dongarlands are the only means of livelihood. Butthey are not being compensated for it. Thisis also a violation of the National Policy onResettlement, which defines agriculturalland for compensation as “lands used orcapable of being used for the purposes ofagriculture and the raising of crops, grassor garden produce” (section 3.1.e).

In 1996, when the first round ofcompensation was offered by UAIL, it wasat Rs 21,000-Rs 28,000/ acre and paymentwas made by cheque into bank accountsthey could access. (They also received a one-time payment of Rs 25,000-Rs 75,000 fortheir homes.) This higher figure is clearly asuccess of the people’s resistance, butequally may impact it adversely in the nearfuture as some people, who have held outtil l now, opt for the higher compensationfigure.

A number of people we met had optedfor compensation or knew of those who didin 1996 at the rates mentioned above. Thosewho did had their pattas taken away andtheir money put into bank accounts theycould access. With few exceptions, it simplyseems to have been blown away, inmarriages, il lness, or in higher alcoholconsumption. This is a recognized hazardeven in urban areas when industrialworkers opt for VRS; what seems like alarge sum of money gets spent in il lness,marriage, etc., and one is left with neither

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the source of earning nor savings. If suchare the effects on settled urbancommunities, one can imagine the limitedbenefits of compensation on people whoseinteraction with the market has beenlimited. Though a number of them domigrate to towns for employment, thecollective sensibility to make the most of asudden large sum of money is limited, andhence where a few have bought cattle, thegeneral story we were told is that thecompensation was frittered away. Oneperson had bought a bus; that was lyingrusted and rotting in village Bagrijhola.Now that much larger sums of money arebeing offered and taken, it wil l onlyintensify these practices.

Clearly, cash compensation cannot bea substitute for livelihood, from which oneearns not just sustenance or money –however meagre – but also a sense of self-worth and dignity. Cash compensation alsotends to have adverse effects upon womenbecause they often do not have access to andcontrol over the compensation money. Theirstatus also gets adversely affected sincethey can no longer do productiveagricultural labour and end up doing onlyhousework. Also women stand little chanceof getting employment in industry.

3. Are Jobs Available?One constant refrain in meetings

authorities have had with villagers at pallisabhas and other meetings is the promiseof jobs, were the companies to startoperations. Given that this is also a majorpoint of arguments in favour of largecompanies entering backward areas ­ andis a real crucial issue to people’s lives - weneed to subject it to some scrutiny.

It certainly appeared from our factfinding, that certain kinds of work hadalready begun prior to the company’s directoperations: the laying of roads, the diggingof pil lars for the conveyor belt, etc.

Construction workers have been hired oncontract, for the most part through twocontractors, one based in Rayagada townand one elsewhere. The wage levels for thework ranged from Rs 40-60 a day, and workwas available for 10-12 days a month, or Rs500-700 a month.

By any measure, that is an abysmallylow wage. But not by the measure of thoselandless labourers who are engaged inbackbreaking agricultural work either foran even lower wage or sharecroppers whoget about half of a low output. In the absenceof land reforms by the government or ofmovements that force land redistributionon the agenda, and in the absence ofmeasures to improve agricul turalproductivity, local agricultural labourerswill be forever stuck in the dilemma of suchunderdevelopment, where in fact beingmade to work 10-12 hours a day for Rs 700a month seems a more attractive option.These jobs also tend to be extremelymedium-term in nature. A road gets built,or the pillars get set up, how long does thattake. A couple of years at most? What then?

Two, for most locals, jobs that they willget will be of this kind, construction workor some menial contract work were thefactories to come up. The Chief Secretarymade an important qualification when hemet us: jobs will be provided, “subject toavailability and skil l”. Whereas jobs foranyone are welcome, these people here whoare getting displaced will end up with thejobs at the bottom of the heap. They simplydo not possess the levels of education or skillto take optimum advantage of suchcompanies entering their areas. The betterjob gains are made by those alreadyprivileged, either by class and education.In all villages our team visited, barely a fewpeople had completed schooling, let aloneanything above Xth class. A few are beingtrained in the ITI at Bhowanipatna, but

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these are very few, just a handful.

In fact, third, the current policy leavesout a large number of employable people.With the policy giving at best one job perhousehold, and declaring that “al lunmarried brothers and sisters whoseparents are not alive shall constitute aseparate family”, it leaves out manyworking people who used to till land. Asmentioned in chapter 2, three out of fivepeople in every household work. Now atbest, one person from each displaced familyis getting a job. As one person told us atVedanta Alumina’s resettlement site,“There are 11 members of my family, one ofthe sons has got a job, how can the entirefamily manage with that?”

This weighs even more heavily on themiddle-aged and the elderly, who had aplace in the agrarian set-up. Now they aredeemed useless, because companies tend toconsider people even in their forties pasttheir prime, not up to intense factory work.Those slightly older, in their late forties orfifties, will simply not be employed. And theloss of work is not merely a loss of income,it’s also a loss of self-worth, a loss of dignity,which will be even more difficult to take forthose who have been in an agrarian settingall their lives and are suddenly in anothersetting without work.

It is clear that the number of peoplethat will get jobs is too few when comparedto the number of project affected people. TheUAIL claims the project will employ 1,400people, including 400 non-technical posts(which locals have a chance of getting). TheVedanta Alumina DPR in fact reveals howlimited the benefits of employment arerelatively. It says the Vedanta Aluminaproject will directly employ 250 people, andanother 500 through indirect employment,a total of 750. Another 1,800 wil l beemployed in the “initial phase”, doubtlessthose engaged in construction and other

temporary work. But the open-cast mining,the DPR says, covers 1,073 hectares inwhich there lives a population of 12,623, ofwhich 48% are STs and over 21 per cent SC.And even these figures are by the 1991census; current figures are doubtless evenhigher.

4. Environmental issues, whatrehabilitation and compensationleaves out:

The rehabilitation policy documentsare also silent about those these projectsmight affect as a consequence of theenvironmental hazards. Since miningoperations have not yet begun in any of thethree areas we visited, what follows mayseem speculative. However, studieselsewhere confirm extremely harmfulconsequences of bauxite mining on people’shealth, wel l-being and daily l ife. Thisnecessitates a serious independent study ofthese impacts, of which there seems to havebeen none in any of the three projects wevisited. If one were to take al l thesepotential effects into consideration, the veryrationale for these projects gets further intoquestion. Perhaps that explains why theyare nowhere in the dry rehabilitation andresettlement calculations.

Let us examine the effects of bauxitemining in somewhat of a chronologicalprocess of operations (each part of themining process has its associated problems),substantiating our argument with effectsthat have been observed elsewhere.

Most obviously and first, it will involvea loss of forest cover and loss of access forthose who use forests. The forest cover isextensive in Lanjigarha (Niyamgiri), and inLaxmipur (Kodingamali). Local adivasisand non-adivasis depend on the forest forminor forest produce and other products.In Belamba, a hamlet of the Battl imavillage, Lanjigarha, we were told thatpeople there collect mahul, kendu, saag,

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leaves used as plates, raw material formaking rope, and also wood for houses fromthe forests around. In other villages we weretold that bamboo too is sourced from theforest; the reliance on bamboo of localtribals and dal its in Orissa has beendocumented in detail. But nowhere is all ofthis part of the compensation calculations.

Two, the dust that fl ies around bothbecause of removing the top soil andbecause of the small size of raw bauxite andalumina will affect both people’s individualhealth and water bodies in the area. Twentyyears ago, PUDR’s reportGandharmardhan Mines: A Report onEnvironment and People said, “The dust[due to blasting of the top-soil], along withthe overburden of the ore washed by rains,can be carried to streams thus leading towater pollution. In fact, people told us thatdebris from the hil l top has pol lutedNrusinghanath stream” (p. 9). This is notjust in the blasting and mining; it’s alsowhile transporting the bauxite ore from themining area to the refinery, a distance of22 km in the case of the UAIL project.

There is the hazard of streams dryingup as a consequence of bauxite mining,which has not been taken intoconsideration. For people who depend onlocal streams for their daily needs ­ bathing,washing up after defecating, washingclothes, the bathing of buffaloes and otherlivestock ­ one can imagine what the effectsof less water or a stream drying up can be.Then, streams are also used in some villagesfor irrigation. For instance, in Kopakhalvil lage, we saw a long stretch of greenbecause the entire stream had been plantedwith rice. They get water throughout theyear, and get two crops thanks to thestream; it’s their only source of irrigation.In the last few months two springs passingthrough Belamba village which is about 3km from the alumina and the power plant

have dried up because the company is alsotaking away the water from the springs athigher levels. We were told that twenty-onestreams emerge from Baphl imali, thehil lock that wi l l be mined by UtkalAlumina. Those streams currently serve 22villages, including Dandavada, Malegaon,Paikuphakal, Chandragiri, Kendumundi,Oari, Baphla, and others. There was no waywe could confirm these numbers, but thepoint is that there has been no study by theSPCB or any other body to comprehensivelyexamine these potential effects of miningon people’s lives.

The process of refining bauxite intoalumina leaves a toxic residue known as ‘redmud’. UAIL documents state that 3,000tonnes of red mud would be generated inthe refining process every day. Red mudusually contains iron oxides, sil ica, zinc,phosphorus, nickel, etc. This by-product,whether it is dumped into the mined areas(as was the practice earlier), or whether itis dumped in sealed ponds, percolates intothe soil pretty quick. In Jamaica, readingsfrom wells in the vicinity of aluminarefineries reveal unusually high sodiumhydroxide and pH readings. Studies haverevealed pH values of 13 in waterdownstream from refineries, which makesthe water unusable for drinking.

In the current context, treated effluentsfrom the UAIL refinery would be dischargedinto Barha river near the plant site. In thecase of Vedanta Alumina, there’s the fearthat the mining and refining work aroundthe Niyamgiri Hills will seriously pollutetwo major rivers, Vansadhara andNagavalli. Already the company hasinstalled a sewage pipeline opening into theVansadhara river. The sewage along withthe reduced flow has pol l uted theVansadhara river water. There’s also theproblem of fly ash from the captive powerplants: for instance, the UAIL power plant

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would generate 600 tonnes of fly ash daily.

Aluminium smelters, from whichalumina is transformed into aluminium –the Aditya Alumina project has one such -emit extremely hazardous chemicals knownas polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Peoplein the vicinity of four Alcan’s smelters inCanada were discovered to have unusuallyhigh rates of cancer and birth defects (IPS/TNI, Behind the Shining: Aluminium’sDark Side, 2001).

As always, workers within workplacesare usually the first to be exposed to andaffected by industrial pollution. Doctorsfound unusually high rates of malignanttumours among smelter workers in variousaluminium smelters operated by Alcan inJonquirre, Canada. Another study in 1995“confirmed the relationship betweenexposure to coal tar pitch volatiles andbladder cancer among primary aluminiumproduction workers”. Finally, in December1999, Alcoa admitted “a small increase incancer could be expected at lower levels ofexposure than had previously beenexpected”.

Another known hazard from processingalumina is from flouride emissions. It hasbeen found that villagers living in thevicinity of NALCO’s aluminium smelter inAngul, Orissa, suffer from brittle bones,tooth and gum disease, lumps of dead skin,and other symptoms of fluorosis. There’salso been an unusually high death rateamong cattle reported. The NALCOsmelter’s discharge canal flows into theNandira river, which is used by these peoplefor bathing, washing clothes, and drinking.A study of an INDAL plant by scientistsfrom Sambalpur published in the Journalof Environmental Biology in October 1990revealed a shockingly high two-thirds ofpeople in the sample studied suffering fromfluorosis. The scientists found the water andvegetation in the region “highly

contaminated by fluorides”. (Aluminium’sDark Side, pp. 71-72).

5. The Problems with the RehabilitationSi te:Many problems were visible in the VedantaAlumina resettlement colony we visited.The site has residents from Kinari andBandhaguda villages who were shifted hererecently.There are as yet about 130 houses here, andit is not uncommon that two families sharea house. The occasional house has beengiven out on rent to workers from otherregions who have come to work in the plant.The houses themselves are small, puccaconstructions, with a little space in front ofeach house. We were told there was also afunctioning primary health centre and aschool, which in theory has classes until the5th standard. A few people had gainedvisibly from the entry of the company,through transportation contracts and thelike. About twenty youth have been sent toan ITI centre in Bhowanipatna for atraining course, and a number of others hadalso applied to be sent. But only 20 or so in130 families are being trained, and it is notclear whether they would get assured jobsin the company.But these resettled people, having lost theirlands and means of livelihood, seemedcompletely at a loss, particularly the middleaged who had nothing to do. Among thespecific problems they have is lack of accessto forests and forest produce, to fuel or landfor grazing cattle. But water, many said, isthe biggest problem. There are seven handpumps but most are not in workingcondition. There is a tap but the watersupply is erratic. The quality of drinkingwater leaves a lot to be desired.

The overwhelming feeling we got wasa depressing sense of bewilderment. Theelderly had been promised pensions for twoyears but had not received it. Suddenly they

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had nothing to do, and the future seemedcompletely uncertain. Some people havebegun saying, within less than a year of thisresettlement site coming up, that they wantto go back.

6. Is a just rehabilitation at allpossible?

While debating the relevance of theseprojects, one has to examine whethermeaningful rehabil itation has everhappened in the case of any projectanywhere in the state, so one could say withsome confidence that a just rehabilitationmay happen here.

Alas, no such evidence exists. NALCO,also a bauxite mining project, which wasset up in Koraput district in the early 1980s,displaced 2,500 households, of which nearlyhalf were adivasi, and 10 per cent dalit. TheUpper Kolab dam project displaced 3,067famil ies. Even the extremely partialrehabilitation that took place has beenslight. A study of the Machkund hydro-electric project in Koraput reveals that ofthe 2,938 households displaced ­ this isactually an underestimate ­ only about sixhundred were rehabilitated, less than 20per cent (P. Sainath, Everybody Loves AGood Drought, pp. 95-96).

Effectively, the absence of anymeaningful rehabilitation contributes to aland alienation that happens partlybecause of these projects: As it is, tribalsand other marginalized communities, bothin Orissa and elsewhere, have historicallybeen dispossessed of their lands which theyhad cultivated, either through the forestdepartment or through firing ranges(Netarhat), through dams or because of landfragmentation. And most of all it happensbecause the inability to repay loans tomoneylenders; land is often pledged andlost. A study also points out that in “fourdistricts of Orissa ­ Dhenkanal, Ganjam,Koraput and Phulbani ­ over half (56%) of

tribal land was lost to non-adivasis over a25-30 year period”. A 1993 study on‘Development, Displacement andRehabilitation in the Tribal Areas of Orissa’by the Indian Social Institute said that “inKoraput district alone, over 100,000 tribalshave been dispossessed of their land [whichincludes] 1.6 lakh hectares of forest onwhich they had depended for theirlivelihood. More than 6 per cent of thedistrict population, a majority of themtribal, have been displaced” (EverybodyLoves a Good Drought, p. 96). This largerprocess of land alienation faced by tribalsand by other marginal communities isaccelerating with the greater entry of largemining companies.

Even after all the qualifications andprecautions the law may lay down, this kindof extent of land alienation has resulted inpubl ic lands, a good part of which isaccessed and tilled by the people, beingtaken over by the government and handedover the private parties. Court judgementssuch as Samata vs. the State of AndhraPradesh (July 1997) lay down that onlygovernments or cooperatives of tribals cantake over lands in scheduled areas. TheOrissa government has said the Samatajudgement does not apply to the state.Which is absurd, because the Samatajudgement derives from the Constitution.

Mind you, government mining can dosufficient damage, as witnessed inGandhamardhan in the mid-1980s. Buteven that caveat is being thrown to thewinds as the government of Orissa hasrecently frenetically opened out its mineralresources to private multinational players.And hence public land and public resourcesare being handed over for private use andprivate profit, all in the name of some ‘publicpurpose’.

But that ‘public purpose’ is extremelyvaguely defined, not elaborated at all, and

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in fact hides the class character of suchacquisition of land and resources. When thiskind of mining is linked to internationalproduction and consumption, the gains arecornered by large domestic - internationalmining companies such as Birla and Alcan,and by consumers in the First World. In anunequal society such as ours, the gains willalso accrue to urban elites in India. Whereasthe costs and consequences are borne byadivasis and dalits in Orissa and elsewhere.More and more, due to the absence of landreform, land fragmentation and lowproductivity, and due to these miningcompanies, people are being pushed into

landlessness and further impoverishment.Every year in India, an additional twomillion people are forced into landlessness.As we witnessed in the villages we visitedin Kashipur and elsewhere, people are beingpushed into the reserve army of labour,forced to work in cities at abysmal wages,in conditions completely alien to them.Hence what passes off as ‘public purpose’or ‘national interest’ is an ideologicalattempt to hide a sustained and seriousclass assault on marginalized adivasis anddalits by large capital. Which makes usfundamentally question the need for thesemining projects at all.

ConclusionTruly, bauxite mining in Koraput is the

continuing story of dispossessing tribal anddalit people from their traditional land andprofessions, through administrative sleightof hand and police persecution. Takingadvantage of the abject poverty of the peoplethrough the false lure of unsustainable,insignificant jobs or by forcing people intoaccepting inadequate compensation. It isthe march of a supremely arrogant state,serving profit-hungry private players, thatcompletely disregards the needs, desires orthe rights of a marginalized people.

Our investigations revealed a series ofvery serious violations in all three projects,in the generation of ‘consent’ required underthe Constitution, in land acquisition and inthe rehabilitation process. To regard theseas aberrations or mistakes would be to missthe high-handed, elitist way in which acentralized bureaucracy has viewed andtreated marginalized people for decades.Those who implement the law arethemselves very much part of the dominantclass and caste structures that benefit from‘development’. Additional ly, theadministration tends to believe in thedominant ideological view that private,particularly foreign investment is a

wonderful thing. As a consequence, whenfaced with popular opposition to miningprojects such as these, state authorities atdifferent level s refuse to functiondemocratically, and treat any opposition tothe projects as a law-and-order problem.Hence the recent intensified police presenceand repression. Because the state is hell-bent on pushing these projects through eventhough the people of the region haveresisted them for over a decade. We fear thispolice repression will only increase in thenear future.

The question is, when economic life isdominated by agriculture, and with localpeople located at the margins of a marketeconomy, can such a development strategyfocused upon mining really help the people?We just need to ask two simple questionsabout the condition of the people who aresupposed to benefit. One, do they have theeducational and social skills to get jobs insuch industries? And two, do they possessthe income to consume the output from suchindustry if they need to? The two factorsare linked. Our findings make it amply clearthat both these conditions simply do notexist in the regions where the miningprojects are currently planned.

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An economic strategy that ignoresagriculture, and focuses primarily onmining-related industrialization will onlymean for the people a further and differentkind of marginal ization. There is noindication that their fate wil l be anydifferent from the mil l ions of otherdispossessed victims of ‘development’ overthe years in different parts of India. A hugenumber will be forced to migrate, to swellthe ranks of the urban working poor, or jointhe reserve army of the unemployed,offering industries an unending supply ofcheap labour. Some will be forced to choosebetween a pitiably low wage in theseindustrial projects and an even lower wagein agriculture. The elderly and the women,who have a role to play in the agriculturaleconomy, will be deemed unemployable, andface a feeling of uselessness. Life will notbe any easier for those who remain to workthe land; not with environmental damagebeing added to the continuingunderdevelopment of agriculture.

It is ironical that the very reason thatinvalidates this model of development -continuing underdevelopment - is presentedas an excuse for it. It’s the rusty, old “atleast they’ll get something” logic. But as wehave seen, the jobs are few, underpaid, andtransient. After the temporary, low-paying,unskilled work like loading-unloading orroad works get over, and people have losttheir land and livelihood, then what?

In real ity ‘development’ andunderdevelopment go hand in hand, unableto exist without one another. Capital isinterested, above all, in just two things.One, profits from the mineral resources ofthe region. And two, cheap labour.Persistent backwardness ensures a steadysupply of cheap labour. And these aren’tjobs that people need for their well-being,but those that capital, and urban elites,want to get done. Fact is, the promise of

prosperity for the people is nothing but amyth. Unfortunately, in the absence of avisible alternative, people made desperateby years of poverty are sometimes will ingto clutch at any straw; believe the mostunbelievable of promises. And where theydon’t - well, what’s the long and well-muscled arm of the law for? Fear and hope.The stick and the carrot. The choices offeredto the poor and the marginalised are nevertoo many.

People located in a primarilyagriculture based economy, with littleengagement with the market, mostlyuntrained for any other form ofemployment, will only benefit with thedevelopment of agriculture. Significantly,demands for better agricul turalinfrastructure, unfettered rights over forestand other natural resources, as well asimproved educational and health facilitiesare increasingly being voiced here.

Also, in a region where the ownershipof patta land has changed little since thecolonial times, where the majority of thepeople are landless or have below-subsistence holdings, the question of landreforms and better agricultural wages isnothing less than crucial.

While the people’s struggle in thisregion is centred around opposition tomining, and the consequent displacementand dispossession, it is also a resoundingrejection of a certain model of ‘development’.This is not an isolated case. In recent years,numerous other struggles against people’sresources being taken over by privatecapital have erupted elsewhere in Orissa,in Chattisgarh, in Jharkhand, in AndhraPradesh, and other states. The experiencesof all these struggles clearly shows that forthe people here, development in anymeaningful sense has to begin with haltingthe mining juggernaut.

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Published by: Secretary, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi (PUDR)For Copies: Sharmila Purkayastha, Flat No. 5, Miranda House Staff Quarters,

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