The Indira Sagar Pariyojana (ISP)

INSIGHT Rehabilitation of the Indira Sagar Pariyojana Displaced Kaivalya Desai, Vineet Jain, Rahul Pandey, P Srikant, Upmanyu Trivedi This article, based on a survey of families displaced by the Indira Sagar Pariyojana dam in Madhya Pradesh, assesses the rehabilitation outcomes. The living standards of people have deteriorated as incomes of most families have fallen by more than half as compared to the pre-displacement years. The main cause of the devastation is the poor design and implementation of the rehabilitation and resettlement programme. An appendix providing survey information is also posted on the web site; the appendix was not reviewed, edited and published in the print edition. We would like to express deepest gratitude to our friends at Narmada Bachao Andolan Chittaroopa Palit, Alok Agrawal, Bhagwan Bhai, Ram Kunwar, Sangeeta, Bala, Kalu and many others. The indomitable courage, passion and humility they display in the incessant struggle with the displaced people of the Narmada valley has been our main inspiration for undertaking this survey. Their struggle is a beacon of light in the vast darkness of displacement, depri vation and exploitation that has filled the valley since the large dams were being built. We are also grateful to the many displaced people living in several resettled sites of Indira Sagar Pariyojana who welcomed us and willingly gave us time to narrate their real human experiences. An unedited version of an appendix has been hosted on the EPW web site alongside this article. Kaivalya Desai, Vineet Jain and Upmanyu Trivedi are students of Delhi University. P Srikant is doing his doctoral work at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, while Rahul Pandey is an independent researcher (Email: rahulanjula@gmail.com) The Indira Sagar Pariyojana (ISP) is one of several large dams being built on the river Narmada. These dams are part of a mega network of projects in the Narmada valley that aims to supply water to the drought-prone areas of Gujarat and also produce some electri city. The ISP is administered by the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) of the government of Madhya Pradesh (MP) and implemented by the Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC). The NHDC has been incorporated as a private company a joint venture of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and the government of MP. The ISP is located about 10 km from Punasa village in Khandwa district in western MP. Its planned height is 262.13 m (full reservoir level FRL) from sea level, all of which has been built. Its maximum water level (MWL) is 263.35 m which causes the back water level (BWL) to rise in certain periods and submerge more land at the reservoir s periphery than what is submerged at FRL. The state government claims that, besides feeding water into the downstream Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), the ISP will irrigate 1.23 lakh hectares in Khandwa and Khargone districts of MP and will support an installed power generation capacity of 1,000 MW. According to government estimates made during the time of dam construction, the ISP was to submerge 248 villages and one town (Harsud), displace 80,572 people belonging to 30,739 families, and submerge 91,348 ha of land including 41,111 ha of forest land (most of the remaining being agricultural land). Several other estimates of the number of displaced people, including those whose houses will submerge at the BWL corresponding to MWL, put the figure at far more than one lakh. In July, 2005, the high court of MP found several lacunae in the rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) process. About 91 new villages that were to come under submergence in the monsoon of 2005 had not been rehabilitated by July of that year and thousands of families had not been given either compensation or house-plots before evacuation. Hence the court ordered the government of MP and NHDC that the water level of the dam should not be increased above 248 m until full rehabilitation is completed. However, even in the latter half of 2006, a lot of families who would be submerged due to rising backwaters were left out of the R&R process. The surveys carried out by the government of MP and NHDC to assess submergence were found to be erroneous. Hence, in September, 2006, the high court held that the properties of families affected at BWL will have to be acquired and the families rehabilitated before the water level rose to an FRL of 262.13 m. The court directed the Central Water Commission (CWC) to assess the extent of submergence at the backwaters. At the same time, the court permitted the height of reservoir to be raised from 255 m to 260 m. Gross Deficiencies Many people facing submergence were forcibly evacuated without adequate government resettlement sites in place, and hence were forced to resettle on their own. For many people, it has been more than two years, and in some cases more than four years, since displacement and subsequent resettlement in either government or private sites. Most independent studies undertaken to assess rehabilitation of oustees have observed gross deficiencies in the rehabilitation process and sub-satisfactory outcomes. For instance, Sharma (2005) reported absence of a rehabilitation plan, inadequate compensation, loss of livelihood, and lack of alternative employment in case of oustees of Harsud town, which was evacuated almost overnight. An independent commis sion constituted by the National Campaign for People s Right to Information, after attending seven public hearings across Khandwa district, noted gross human rights violation, forcible dis placement, and absence of adequate rehabili tation and livelihood Economic & Political Weekly December 22, 2007 27

INSIGHT opportunities [NCPRI 2004]. Now that it has been two to four years since the displacement took place, there is a need to comprehensively assess R&R status of the people, especially in the rural areas. To fill this crucial gap, the authors of this paper visited several govern ment and privately resettled sites from September to November 2006, and carried out a detailed survey which included both collection of relevant data and one-to-one discussions with families living in those sites. This paper is an outcome of the survey. The findings and analyses reported here are based on our direct observations and interactions with the displaced people during the field survey. What the Government Has Offered The R&R policy of the government of MP mandates that a person whose agricultural land is to be submerged due to a project is entitled to receive land and be rehabilitated at least six months before the likely submergence date, as per the following norms: A person with less than five acres of submerged land will get five acres of cultivable and irrigated land. A person with five or more acres of submerged land will get same size of cultivable and irrigated land. The clause requiring R&R to be completed within a minimum period of six month before submergence is in consonance with the Supreme Court orders in Tehri and Narmada cases. In reality, however, no land, barren or otherwise, was offered to the oustees of ISP. This was the main reason that most oustees were not agreeable to the R&R. As a way out of this imbroglio and to show the implementation of the R&R package, the government of MP later revised the R&R package. According to the revised package, every displaced family of ISP was to be offered a house-plot (the price of which was later deducted from compensation amount) on a government resettlement site, along with cash compen sation in exchange for its agricultural land and other submerged assets like house, trees, and wells. In addition, every adult member of a family was offered a special rehabilitation grant (SRG) in cash. Further, the high court has ordered that adult sons 28 and unmarried adult daughters are also entitled to five acres of cultivable and irrigated land. The amount for cash compensation was fixed at Rs 60,000 per acre of irrigated land and Rs 40,000 per acre of nonirrigated land. SRG amount was fixed at Rs 94,000 lump sum for a person belonging to SC/ST category and Rs 35,000 for others. In addition, the state government also promised to build certain civic infrastructure on each government site, including roads, electricity distribution wires, public wells, drainage system, primary school, etc. However, a majority of the oustees had to resettle privately as the government did not make resettlement sites for them. In many cases where a government site was offered, it did not have most of the basic amenities required for sustenance. Many displaced families are yet to receive several of their legal entitlements. Despite high court orders, the adult sons and unmarried adult daughters have not been offered any land. Lands of at least a few thousand people, whose houses will come under submergence at BWL and FRL, have still not been acquired and they are yet to be rehabilitated. Survey of Displaced Families With the objective of assessing post- displacement status of oustee families and change in their economic and social well-being after displacement and resettlement, we attempted to cover representative families of various types in the survey. In all we covered five sites where people have been resettled by the government Jhingadarh, Bhangarda, Chikli, Ambakhal, Jhagariya and six sites where people have preferred to resettle Table: Aggregate Composition of Surveyed Families on their own (i e, privately) Barud, Naya Siwar, Siwar-Bhagwanpura Road, Hantiya, Dinkarpura, Nagarbeda. A total of 429 families (1,753 members), were surveyed by direct visits to their houses. All surveyed sites belong to Harsud tehsil of Khandwa district in MP and the Harsud tehsil region has been the most severely affected by submergence due to ISP. The survey was not based on any random sample. We visited the sites un annou nced in 2006-07. In each resettle ment site we first visited the village sarpanch and obtained from him the following information: Overview of the village before and after displacement; layout of the site; composition of the village according to various castes and communities (samaaj) and their location distribution in the site. Then we visited the cluster of every samaaj and in each cluster we covered at least five households in the survey. Sele ction of households was not random but influenced by several factors like the houses we could access first, the houses we found open, and the people who themselves saw and approached us out of curio sity. On the whole, however, we made an attempt to cover households from various socio-economic strata in a resettlement site. In general, the population of a privately resettled site was observed to be much less than that of a government resettled site. This is because government sites are better planned and have greater support of state resources for infrastructure, whereas private sites are organically formed as a result of a small group of families deciding to buy plots at the same location and other families following them over time. Therefore, the average sample size of surveyed families of a private site is less than that of a government site. Dimension Category No of Families Surveyed Type of resettlement Government site 299 Private site 130 Before displacement After displacement Dominant economic activity Mainly landowning farmers* 182 137 Small farmers** 86 33 Mainly farm labourers 127 212 Other means of skilled employment self-employed, government employed, etc 22 19 Unskilled labourers (e g, migrant factory labourers) 0 9 No means of employment 12 19 * Almost all exclusive landowning farmers we surveyed were medium farmers, owning farmland in the range of 5-40 acres; most of them can economically sustain their families without having to do any other work. ** Small farmers are those owning less than five acres of (mostly non-irrigated) land; most such families we surveyed were of very small farmers who also partially engage in farm labour work to sustain themselves. December 22, 2007 Economic & Political Weekly

In each village we surveyed families from every socio-economic stratum so as to get a representative picture. The aggre gate composition of surveyed families on some key dimensions is shown in the table (p 28). Families in all five government resettlement sites that we visited were originally residing in villages falling in the submergence zone of the ISP but located within three to four km of resettled sites. Most families in a particular resettled village have moved from the same original village (with same name as the resettled one), except in the case of Bhangarda where they have come from multiple villages (Borkheda Khurd, Baldi, Jalgaon, and others). In contrast, some families of privately resettled sites have moved from original (submergence) villages located as far as 30-40 km, especially those who lost all land and were keen to begin their lives afresh in a location that was more suitable among various possible options. However, in many cases, families preferred to re settle privately in a nearby location because some of their original land was saved from submergence whereas there was no government site at a convenient distance. Almost every private site that we visited was constituted by families from multiple submerged villages. This was expected as private sites formed in a more organic and less planned fashion than government sites. Inconvenient Location One of the main reasons why some people accepted to live in government resettlement sites some of which are located comfortably close to the original (displaced) villages is that part of their original land had not been submerged, and this held them back. However, for many villages falling in the submergence zone, the government resettlement sites were not located close enough to original location. Moreover, many government sites were inconvenient from various viewpoints such as distance from the nearest marketplace, distance from urban habitation, quality and price of land plots, availability of middle and high schools in the vicinity, and other basic facilities. Most displaced people who were offered such government sites did not accept them and instead chose to resettle privately. In many cases the people were not offered any government site and therefore had no choice but to resettle privately. Impact on Displaced People As can be seen from the table, there has been a decline in the number of families of exclusive landowning farmers (by about 25 per cent) and even small farmers (by about 62 per cent), and a sharp rise in the number of landless farm labourer families (by about 67 per cent) in the surveyed sample. The number of families with unskilled non-farm labourers and unemployed adults have also increased. Thus, on the whole, while almost all families continue to remain economically dependent on agriculture, their economic status has deteriorated. Many previously exclusive landowning farmers have now become small farmers, some of whom have to partially rely on labour work for sustaining their families. Many previously small farmers have now become landless labourers. Many of those who still remain small farmers have to do more of farm labour work to sustain their families. Several have become unemployed. Appendices A and B summarise our findings of surveys of government resettled sites and privately resettled sites, respectively. (The appendices are not published in the print edition but are hosted on the e pw web site alongside this article.) As can be seen from these appendices, there has been a drastic change in several economic and non-economic indicators of livelihood, mostly for the worse. More over, the nature and extent of such impacts are different for different categories of people. The following subsections present our analysis of these findings. Loss of Agricultural Lands: Most landowning families have lost a major share of their agricultural lands to submergence. As the rate of compensation for irrigated land has been at most half (in many regions, at most one-third) of the market rate, no family has been able to buy the equivalent size of land after resettlement. For instance, among surveyed sample of previously landowning farmer families (including both big-medium and small farmers), about 70 per cent from Jhingadarh, 100 per cent from Bhangarda, 34 per cent from insight Chikli, 80 per cent from Ambakhal, 70 per cent from Jhagariya, and majority from Barud, Naya-Siwar, and Nagarbeda now own less than half of their previous farmland ownership. Many who were small or medium landowning farmers earlier have now become partial labourers. Some of them have been rendered landless. Therefore, the income of most families has reduced significantly as almost all of them continue to be dependent exclu sively on agriculture. Every surveyed farmer family from Bhangarda, Naya-Siwar, Barud, and Nagarbeda reported a more than 50 per cent decline in their income. In Jhingadarh, Ambakhal, Jhagariya, Siwar-Bhagwanpura Road, and Hantiya, a majority of the farmer families reported more than 50 per cent decline in income. Loss of Employment: In our visits and interactions with villagers, it was evident that loss of agricultural lands had an immediate impact on employment opportunities for members of communities that were directly dependent on farm-related activities. Many villages witnessed a sharp fall in cumulative agricultural land ownership. For instance, land owned cumu latively by all families in Naya-Siwar and Nagerbeda had reduced by more than half. Another displaced village, Bhavarli, that we visited but did not include in this paper due to inadequate family level data, has seen about 90 per cent reduction in the cumulative agricultural land of residents. However the state government claims its resettlement site of Bhavarli, with semipucca roads, five public wells, electricity supply, and well laid-out houses and streets, as one of its model sites. With the decline in landownership in a village, its landowning farmers lose income due to the fall in total agricultural output, and its landless farm labourers and small farmers who partially engage in farm labour work witness a more drastic income reduction owing to a fall in employment. The latter is a consequence of twin factors (i) decrease in demand for farm labour work as total agricultural land in the village goes down, and (ii) drop in the labour wage rate as labour supply far outstrips demand, a trend accelerated by an increase in proportion of the landless. Along with a decline in quantum, the Economic & Political Weekly December 22, 2007 29

INSIGHT demand for farm labour work also becomes more uncertain and variable, thereby inducing greater economic insecurity among labourer families. Moreover, demand for supporting kinds of employment (or self-employment), like tailoring, carpentry, and grocery shop, falls too because of the general decline in purchasing capacity of families (consumers) living in such a village. This is what happened with varying degree in all sites that we visited. Labourers Problems The population of landless or small landowning labourers increased significantly in Bhangarda, Ambakhal, and Jhagariya (among government sites), and in Barud, Naya-Siwar, Hantiya, and Nagarbeda (among private sites). Labou rers in all these sites complained of a severe reduction in farm labour work, from 15-25 days a month in the original villages (pre-displacement) to two to nine days a month in locations near the resettled sites (post-displacement), as well as a drop in wage rates. Labourers of Jhingadarh and Chikli reported relatively less severe but a distinct decline in farm labour work and income. In all surveyed cases, labourer families reported at least 50 per cent fall in average annual income. Some resettlement sites also witnessed a fall in other kinds of employment that are sustained by close proximity to urban or semi-urban markets. These are the sites that are inconveniently located, i e, far from urban or semi-urban centres in contrast with the relatively greater proximity of the original pre-displacement villages. This aspect is explained in greater detail in the next sub-section. Proximate Markets and Economic Links Lost: A village in course of its organic evolution builds numerous economic and social linkages with the neighbouring regions. This results in the economic dependence of the village community with the neighbouring regions, especially the nearest urban and semi-urban centres and the local wholesale trading hubs of agricultural products. Such centres and hubs provide sustained markets for all nearby village communities to sell and buy various products and services. For instance, farmers of such villages sell agricultural 30 produce, labourers seek a variety of daily wage work like those on construction sites, small-medium factories and shops, and other skilled and semi-skilled persons like tailors, barbers, carpenters, mechanics and rickshaw-pullers survive by selling their services in these markets. Our survey brought out glaringly how people suffer acutely when they are displaced from their original villages that are located close to urban or semi-urban markets or otherwise connected conveniently to them (via roads with well running public transport services). We found that the majority of government resettlement sites are not conveniently located from this viewpoint. For instance, government sites like Chikli and Bhavarli, though located within three to four km from the original submerged locations, have become almost cut off from the town of Harsud on which their residents depended. While earlier, Harsud was within three km from Chikli and Bhavarli, now the distance is about 60 km by road as the town and the villages have been relocated and the expanding reservoir water has cut off the previous road links. As Harsud was a town with a population of more than 40,000, it had for generations been an attractive market for the residents of Chikli, Bhavarli and several other villages. Most villagers frequently travelled to Harsud for some economic activity and had become strongly dependent on it for their livelihood. After displacement and resettlement, all such links have been destroyed. Now the nearest market is a semi-urban area called Chanera which is about 15 km from the resettled sites of Chikli and Bhavarli, and farther from some other sites. However, Chanera is an old, small and saturated market which already has commercial links with neighbouring regions existing for generations. Therefore it is now extremely difficult for the people of Chikli, Bhavarli and other sites in that region to build new economic links from scratch. Their plight is painfully exemplified by a resident of Bhavarli who owned several cows and buffaloes and previously made a living for his family by selling milk to several residents of Harsud. After moving to the resettlement site, he has lost his entire customer base, forced to sell off most his cattle, resulting in depression, and an addiction to drinking. Loss of Other Natural Resource: People living in rural areas are dependent for livelihood on several natural resources besides land. They keep cattle (cows, buffaloes, goats) for milk and dung. Dung has multiple uses, such as manure for farmland and fuel for cooking. Various trees are grown by families in their farmland and house plots as sources for providing fruits, wood, herbal medicines, and shade. Wood is used as fuel for cooking as well as in construction of houses and for making furniture. In addition, there are trees, bushes and grassland in the common land of a village, part of which is often used for grazing by the cattle and people collect wood and twigs for fuel. Many submerged villages of ISP also had the benefit of proximity to forests which were a constant source of wood and other useful livelihood inputs. Finally, there are public wells situated in the common village land which are used by everyone to source water for drinking, bathing, washing and other acti vities. Common Resources Such natural resources are often used by both landowning and landless families. Moreover, they are a lifeline to the latter. Landless people of a village are critically dependent on common resources like trees, wells and grazing land for everyday living. In addition, they may also be permitted by landowning families to collect wood, dung and other resources from their land. Due to the close network of economic and social relationships that they maintain with rest of the village the landless people have access to these critical resources, which they do not own themselves. Such relationships are built and sustained in a village over generations. These relationships have been cut off due to displacement and dispersion of a village into various displacement sites. In addition, villages in all sites that we visited have experienced a dramatic reduction in all such natural resources after displacement and resettlement. While privately owned resources have depleted significantly, common resources are almost fully lost. December 22, 2007 Economic & Political Weekly

Among surveyed families, privately owned useful trees have almost vanished in Jhingadarh, Chikli, Ambakhal, Naya-Siwar, Siwar-Bhagwanpura Road, and Nagar beda. In Bhangarda, Jhagariya, Barud, and Hantiya, they have depleted by 65-80 per cent. Before displacement, while landless families owned a few trees, landowning families owned many. For instance, the average number of trees per surveyed family before displacement, was about 21 in Dinkarpura, 12 in Ambakhal, six in Nagarbeda, three in Siwar-Bhagwanpura Road and Hantiya, and two in Jhingadarh. Although people will privately grow trees over time in resettle ment sites, it is likely to take many years to rebuild the original resource base. Loss of Forest Land Almost all forest land in that region has been lost due to submergence, thereby suddenly cutting off an important source of regular supply of wood and other inputs. None of the resettlement sites, inclu ding the government ones, have any common land for grazing. The absence of grazing land and worsened economic condition have forced many families to sell off a majority of their cattle. As a result, cattle population in almost all surveyed villages has come down steeply. Among all surveyed families, it has reduced by more than 80 per cent in Bhangarda and Barud, and by about 60 per cent in Ambakhal, within two to three years after displacement. In these villages, a majority of the surveyed people were landless or small farmers before displacement and most of them have become landless now, with severe adverse effects on their economic status. Cattle population owned by surveyed families of Jhagariya, Naya Siwar, Siwar- Bhagwanpura Road, Hantiya, and Nagarbeda has fallen by 30-50 per cent, within two to three years after displacement. Surveyed samples in these villages have also witnessed an increase in the number of landless labourers and a signi ficant reduction in landowned by farmers. This indicates that, while almost all displaced families now find it difficult to maintain cattle at previous levels of ownership, land less and small farmer families have faced the severest hardship. Loss of cattle has, in turn, made life extremely difficult for such families as their supply of dung and milk has almost disappeared. Health Status: Incidents of health problems were reported by some families in all surveyed sites except Siwar-Bhagwanpura Road, Dinkarpura, and Hantiya. Almost all surveyed families in these three sites are landowning farmers and most of then have been able to purchase new land after displacement. Commonly reported health problems were stomach problems, fever, malaria, and psychological depression and stress. In Ambakhal, an overwhelming majority (about 90 per cent) of surveyed families complained of such problems, probably due to stagnant water-logging near the settlement as a result of expanding reservoir backwaters. In other sites, 15-35 per cent of the surveyed families reported such health problems. In all sites, the common causes for declining health appeared to be as follows: (i) absence of clean drinking water, especially for those who cannot afford private wells, (ii) absence of pucca roads and drainage system in the village, resulting in water-logged, roads and increased mosquitoes especially in the rainy season, (iii) deterioration of food and nutrition intake due to worsened economic condition, especially among landless and very small farmer families, and (iv) general increase in levels of depression and stress due to worsened economic condition and insecurity, especially among landless and very small farmer families. Almost none of the surveyed sites, including the government ones, have any primary health centre. One site (Chikli) has a private doctor, but we could not assess his accessibility and affordability to the landless families. In many of the privately resettled sites (where people have chosen to resettle because of the proximity to an already established village), primary health centres exist in neighbouring villages. But again we could not properly assess the accessibility of resettled families, especially the landless, to those facilities. Such deterioration of health among members of some landless families, and a similar threat among others, have both insight added to their economic burden and also made it more difficult for them to actively seek work in places further away. Educational Opportunities for Children: The government resettlement sites that we visited have a primary school. But the private sites do not. In some private sites, like Hantiya, the nearest primary school is more than three to four km away, and therefore some children have dropped out. The other private sites that we visited had a primary school nearby, so most children continue to go to school. In one private site, Barud, comprising mainly of landless labourers, economic constraint was cited as the main reason for withdrawing children from the primary school. More children have dropped out from middle and high schools as many sites are not located at convenient distance from such schools. For instance, the government site of Chikli, and the private sites of Barud, Naya-Siwar, Hantiya, and Dinkarpura have witnessed withdrawal of some children from middle and high schools. In Barud, more than 50 per cent of surveyed families reported that children who were previously school-going had dropped out. In other places, 10-18 per cent of surveyed families reported such cases. Most of the children who dropped out due to inconvenient distance are girls. Even among those still going to school several are irregu lar as reported by the parents. Economic hardship has been an additional reason for withdrawing children from school, especially among the landless and very small farmer families like many of Barud residents and a few of Bhangarda. Restricted Option In cases where there is no middle or high school at a convenient distance, for instance in Siwar-Bhagwanpura Road, Hantiya and Nagarbeda, some children have been sent by parents to live with relatives in other places where schools exist. But this option could be exercised only by those who could afford it, mainly landowning farmers. Most of the children who have now dropped out were going to school before displacement, because middle and high schools were not too far. With cities like Economic & Political Weekly December 22, 2007 31

INSIGHT Harsud and some semi-urban locations within commutable distance from the original villages, parents had the advantage of both proximity and choice of multiple schools for their children. It is not clear whether the dropped out children can get back to school in the near future. This is because the two main reasons economic hardship of parents and distance of school from village are not likely to disappear soon. Needless to say, children of the landless and very small farmer families have been the main sufferers. Breakdown of Community and Family Relationships: The most evident nonquantifiable impact of displacement that we observed from interactions with villagers is the souring or breaking down of relationships between various community sections in a village, between households, between families in the same household, and between members of the same family. Although this impact is not observed in every family, it is clearly evident that the atmosphere of mistrust has increased with varying degrees in almost all villages that we visited. We could assess three possible causes of this impact: (i) process of estimation and disbursal of cash compensation for a village was severely affected by rampant corruption, nexus between district/block level officials and powerful vested interests in the village, and lack of timely and complete communication of correct information related to rehabilitation package and rights of various sections of the affected population, (ii) general reduction in land holding and economic status of farmers, leading to shortage of farm labour demand and tightening of labour wages, subsequently deepening the alie nation between families of land owning farmers and land less labourers, and (iii) cash compensation for assets lost in submergence was, in most cases, estima ted and disbursed at the household level, resulting in disagreement among various families and members of the household (who jointly used the assets) concerning the utilisation of compensation, and subsequent divisions. Process of Disbursement From our discussions with various villagers it became clear that the process of esti mating and disbursing compensation for privately owned assets like agricul tural land, house, wells, and trees was mired in the mess of corruption, manipulation, and misinformation. Almost every village has a few persons with influence but the divi sive vested interests make them go out of the way to forge manipulative nexus with authorities like district/block level offi cials who are vulnerable to corruption, especially when there are opportunities to make money. Such opportunities often arise in the form of rural development or welfare schemes of the state which involve allocation and disbursal of large funds. The estimation and disbursal of compensation and special grants as part ISP s R&R package was one such opportunity. THE MALCOLM & ELIZABETH ADISESHIAH TRUST Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies The Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust invites nominations for the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies, 2008. Aim: To recognize significant achievements in research in the field of development studies and to encourage further contributions. Eligibility: Indian and foreign scholars ordinarily working in India and around the age of 50. Modalities: The Awardee will be selected by an independent jury of eminent academics primarily on the basis of the quality of published research work. The Award carries a citation and a cash prize of Rs. 2 lakhs. Further research assistance will be made available to the scholar when required. The Awardee will be expected to deliver the Adiseshiah Memorial Lecture, 2008. The Trust invites academics from universities, research centres/institutes, as well as those presently enjoying no institutional affiliation to nominate eligible scholars for the award. Applications will not be entertained. Nominations with the CV of the nominee/s may be sent to the Hony. Executive Officer of the Trust before 29 February 2008 to the following address: The Hony. Executive Officer, Malcolm & Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust, No.17, (New No. 4) I Cross Street, Second Floor, Indira Nagar, Adyar, Chennai 600 020. Phone 044 2445 6225; Fax - 0091-44-24456225. Email nominations are accepted at: meatrust@dataone.in 32 December 22, 2007 Economic & Political Weekly

The entire process was sabotaged by the nexus of vested interests involving persons from the district levels down to the villages. This resulted in an atmosphere of utter mistrust, lack of correct information, and rumour mongering in almost every village that was covered under the submergence and R&R scheme. Corruption seeped through at all stages decisions of the inclusion/exclusion of specific pieces of lands, houses, wells and trees; classification of a piece of agricultural land as irrigated or non-irrigated; classification of a house as pucca or kuchcha; measurement of areas of agricultural lands and houses; accounting of wells and trees; classification of a person as adult or non-adult; and finally, disbursal of funds. We were narra ted countless stories of how few influential persons of a village ganged up to garner undue benefits for themselves whereas the majority, especially the landless and small farmers, had to pay bribes and run from pillar to post for getting what was due to them. The hardest hit by corruption have been communities from the lower castes and tribes. All this experience has left bitter relationships between different households and sections of communities in the resettled villages. Condition of Small Farmers As explained in the first two sub-sections of this section, while, in general, the landholding and the economic condition of landowning farmers has gone down perceptibly, the economic condition of very small farmers and the landless has taken the biggest hit after displacement. The latter category of families, who were already surviving on the margins, has been further pushed to the brink. As cumulative landownership of all the farmers of a village has fallen, so has the demand for farm labour work. The economics of landowning farmers being squeezed, they are under pressure to cut costs. With the supply of labour far exceeding demand, wages for all kinds of farm labour work have also been squeezed. In addition, the demand for farm labour work has become more fluctuating and uncertain. Post displacement, a landless labourer is much more uncertain at the beginning of a month about whether he/ she will get work and if so, for how many days than what he/she was used to before displacement. Thus, on the one hand, desperate competition among landless labourers has increased (while they continue to live as neighbours). On the other hand, many contemplate in distress (and some have already begun) to migrate to other places, though not sure of where and how much work they will get. This scenario has only added to mutual animosity widening the gulf between the poor and better off communities and castes within a village. Common Practice In most cases, the common assets of a household like agricultural land, house, wells, trees, etc, are used by all members and their output shared by all families and members living in it, even though an asset might be registered in the name of only one or few members. This is a common practice in rural households in India. It helps to bind together as a close knit unit, members of different families of a household, and is an important way of providing both economic and social security to the members. Therefore, while on paper the compensation for assets lost to submergence was given in the name of the official owners, it rightly belonged to all the families of the household. However, since all compensation was given as cash, different families of a household rarely agreed on a common way of utilising or investing the money. In cases of unresolved disagreements, which we observed in majority of the households, different families of a household preferred to part ways with their share of cash. We heard many such stories of differences between brothers, between father and sons, and between brothers and married sisters. In most such cases, even when the total amount of compensation was large, the divided share of a particular family was not large enough to make adequate investment in productive assets. Moreover, as different families decided to part ways with their share of cash, in several cases they also moved to live separately after displacement. Thus, households as units of living in a village became worse off after displacement on both economic and social aspects. In many households such experiences generated long lasting bitterness in family relationships. insight Besides deterioration in the economic condition, the social and psychological security derived from living in large close-knit households also dissipated. Infrastructure and Development in Resettled Sites: In general, the government resettlement sites are better than private sites on aspects of village level infrastructure like common/public area in a village, roads, electricity, water wells, primary school, and some community level facilities like the building for the gram panchayat. However, the number and quality of these amenities vary widely across different government sites. For instance, at one end, Bhavarli and Chikli have semi-pucca roads, four to five public wells, electricity wires (though with irre gular supply), and a primary school. A drainage system is under construction in Bhavarli. At the other end, Jhingadarh has scarce piped water supply, no public well, roads or drainage system; Bhangarda has no public well, piped water or drainage system; Jhagariya has no roads or drainage system; and Ambakhal has no roads, electricity, water (wells or pipes) or drainage system. The infrastructure in privately rese ttled sites is worse. Being self-settled, sites, none of them Barud, Naya Siwar, Siwar Bhagwanpura Road, Hantiya, Dinkarpura, and Nagarbeda have roads, water (wells or pipes), electricity, or drainage system. Living and moving around the village becomes a health hazard, especially during the rainy season. Absence of an indigenous drinking water source has often forced residents to endure huge physical inconveniences, and sometimes mental harassment, having to fetch water from other sources like public wells in a neighbouring village or wells located in private farmlands. Many people complained that health problems have increased due to both the absence of roads and the scarcity of clean drinking water. Moreover, people resettled in private sites also face hostility from neighbouring host communities. The host communities see them as unwelcome intruders who tend to share their resour ces like water, trees, grazing land, schools and primary health care facilities, besides competing for labour work and other local employments. Despite worse infrastructure in private sites and the hostility of host vill ages, a Economic & Political Weekly December 22, 2007 33

INSIGHT majority of the displaced people continue to resettle in private sites. As discussed earlier, there were only a few government sites on offer, and many of them were not attractive on criteria rela ted to livelihood, like proximity to the non-submerged part of the original farmland, proximity to markets, accessibility to major roads, and the price of land for potential purchase. The families who decided to resettle privately could choose relatively better locations based on these criteria. Even in the government sites such as Bhavarli and Chikli which have better infrastructure facilities than the rest, the villagers both landowning farmer and landless families have witnessed significant erosion of their economic condition and resource base due to reasons explicated earlier. This economic erosion in these model government sites is not significantly diffe rent from the erosion that we observed in the other government and private sites. It is for this reason that most residents of Bhavarli and Chikli also felt highly dissatis fied and deprived by the state government despite the infrastructure facilities in their village being better than the rest. Worse than Before In our survey of 429 families (out of a total of more than 30,000 households accounting for much more than a lakh people) displaced due to ISP, we found that living standard of every single family has deteriorated after the R&R process [see web posting alongside article]. The cash compensation and SRG package has been grossly insufficient to help families make adequate productive investments. Most of the government resettlement sites lack basic amenities like access to markets and employment opportunities, proximity to affordable and cultivable land and forests, availability of trees, grazing land for cattle, basic infrastructure like proper roads, drainage, and in some cases, clean water supply. The inability of the state to provide decent resettlement sites is the reason that majority of the oustees chose to resettle privately. While government sites are slightly better on aspects of roads, water and electricity supply, many privately resettled sites fare slightly better on the more fundamental economic aspects like the proximity to markets and the relatively favourable price of land. However, most private sites do not have even the basic infrastructure like roads, water, elect ricity and primary school. Moreover, the oustees resettled in private sites face hostility from the neighbouring host community whose resources (like water, trees, grazing land, schools, primary healthcare facilities) they share and with whom they compete locally for labour work and other employments. On the whole, we did not observe any significant difference in the SAGE 34 December 22, 2007 Economic & Political Weekly

extent of deterioration in the standard of living between those settled privately and those resettled in government sites. No family covered in the survey has been able to rebuild its lost livelihood even after two to four years of displacement and resettlement. Most farmers who lost substantial farm land due to submergence could at best purchase a small fraction of it. Several small farmers have become either landless labourers or more dependent on farm labour work to supplement insufficient income from farming. The landless labourers, who comprise an overwhelming majority of the oustees, have been pushed further to the brink of precarious survival. The cash received as compensation for lost assets like land was much less (by at least 50 per cent) than the prevailing market rates. Cash received as SRG too was not sufficient to invest in any major productive asset. In the end, most of the compensation and SRG money was spent by the people in multiple contingencies like purchase of new house plot, construction of new house, paying off all or part of the old debt, and meeting the running expense of families suddenly trapped in a situation of drastic reduction in farm output and labour demand which has been continuing with the same severity even after two to four years of resettlement. The farm labourers incomes have fallen sharply and become more uncertain as both farm labour demand and wage rates have been squeezed. At the beginning of the week adults of labourer families are uncertain if they would be able to support their family through the week. In a majority of the resettled villages, a labourer now does not hope to get work for more than a third of a month, whereas earlier finding work was not this difficult. As economic hardships deepened and the common grazing land unavailable, almost all families were forced to sell off all or part of their cattle. Some children, especially girls, were withdrawn from schools. Health problems, inclu ding physical illness and psycho logical depression, increased. We observed that due to economic distress, seasonal migrations became a common feature; some landless families began to migrate for the long haul, and more are contemplating longer-term migration. The irony is that people are not sure which place is good enough to migrate and whether their economic condition will improve after that. Hopeless Situation The hopeless situation that we encountered village after village and family after family forced us to ponder about an appropriative alternative R&R package. After our experience we are convinced about two things. First, the amount of cash offered as compensation and SRG was highly insufficient to make any productive investment required to rebuild a livelihood. Second, though cash is a useful component of the compensation package, it cannot suffice as the main or only component. The second point becomes crucial in the special context of displacement as in case of the ISP oustees. The context is that of a person, who has rarely seen cash, even a few thousand rupees, being suddenly handed over cash worth thousands of rupees (or even a few lakh), and thrust with the contingency of making fundamental livelihood decisions. It is a difficult task especially in the midst of a local environment marked by high levels of mistrust, misinformation and corruption, and surrounded by several goons, middlemen, moneylenders and marketers ready to pounce at the slightest opportunity to make money at others expense. In such a context only a few of us can take cool headed, rational decisions. People s Bitterness Now that the dust has settled down and their daily lives stabilised at a worse level of struggle than before, everyone is bitter about what happened. In retrospect, almost everyone we met felt that they should have got land for land. When people, whose main skill and knowledge base is in agriculture, are suddenly uprooted from agricultural assets and resources, there are only two ways to rebuild the lost livelihoods. Either they get back good quality agricultural assets (i e, cultivable and irrigated lands along with the peripheral support systems) which they can harness with the skill and knowledge they already possess. Or they should be provided with an alternate productive asset with potentially attractive markets insight and also granted sufficient material support as a cushion during the time taken to train themselves in acquiring new skills and be provided with the knowledge base required to ope rate the new assets economically, source new inputs, market new outputs, to begin lives afresh. Needs of Policy In the case of ISP, other dams on Narmada, and other development projects that displace local people who are mostly underprivileged, a robust R&R policy should have at least the following components: (i) Project Approval Linked to R&R Implementation and Performance: This must be non-negotiable because unless the stakes of policymakers and project owners are linked to granting full justice to the potential oustees, the R&R imple mentation will not receive the desired level of commitment. Thus project approval must be linked not only to the implementation but also to the outcome of R&R. Before clearing a project, there should be visible signs that the process of rebuilding livelihoods of affected people is on track. Since it may take at least two to three years for such signs to emerge even in case of the best possible R&R, the design and imple mentation of R&R as part of a project s approval process should be appropriately phased in time. This is not a problem that cannot be addressed as preparatory lead time for most such projects is much longer (it was about 20 years in case of ISP). (ii) Comprehensive Design of R&R Package Aimed Explicitly at Rebuilding Livelihoods: R&R package must contain various elements that are critical for rebuilding lost livelihoods of displaced families. These must include: (a) Non-cash elements like investment in productive assets such as adequate size of cultivable and irrigated farm land for each family (this size should have a minimum fixed component sufficient for sustaining a family and a variable component proportional to lost land), provision of wide choice to a family with respect to location of new farm land and house plot, selection of resettlement sites based on the proximity and access to markets and urban or semi-urban Economic & Political Weekly December 22, 2007 35