Settling a cover for all

This was an improvement, considering those ousted by Bhakra and Pong were paid a pittance for their land. Now with the SEZ debate, there is an opportunity for the rehabilitation policy to move several steps forward.

The government has been unable to formulate a National Rehabilitation Policy so far. It has rejected all the drafts offered by various committees and ministries. In 1985, a committee under B.D. Sharma was created to frame a policy. In 1993, the rural development ministry came up with a draft policy that was never adopted.

In 1998, the ministry of rural development proposed a draft Land Acquisition Bill as well as the draft National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy. The NDA government announced a National Policy on R&R in February 2004. However, it saw rehabilitation as a welfare measure rather than the affected family’s right. Since it was not legally enforceable, it was largely ignored by all infrastructure agencies.

Pushed by the National Advisory Council (NAC), the UPA government came out with another draft in October 2006. It has been fast-tracked by the prime minister following the protests over Singur. Though it is different from the version finalised by the NAC, it is the best attempted so far. The government has also announced its intention to make it legally enforceable.

Some of the highlights of the policy:

• Social impact assessment has been made mandatory even in projects where environmental assessment is not required

• Social assessment and preparation of R&R plan for all projects involving displacement of more than 400 families (as against 500 in NPRR 2003) in plain areas and 200 families (as against 250 in NPRR 2003) in hilly/scheduled areas.

• Involvement of gram sabhas in discussing R&R plan specially in tribal areas

• Disbursement of full compensation and adequate resettlement prior to displacement

• Employment to those losing jobs due to project

• Fishing rights extended to all the families displaced by irrigation projects

• Benefits to project affected people in the form of shares in projects of corporate organisations/companies where applicable

• Preparation of a tribal development plan if more than 200 tribal families are displaced

• Additional benefits to Scheduled Caste affected families at par with tribal displaced families

Meanwhile, in the absence of a national policy, some states and agencies formulated their own rehabilitation policies. In most cases, they were forced to adopt one as international funding agencies required it as a pre-condition to funding infrastructure projects.

Coal India Limited formulated its policy on R&R in 1994 for a World Bank-funded project called the Coal Sector Environment and Social Mitigation Project. Coal India amended it in 2000 and adopted it as corporate policy. National Highways has its own policy. National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC) finalised its own in June 2005. National Hydro Power Corporation is preparing its policy.

A national policy is required to set the bottomline. But the present draft that the ministry of rural development is working overtime to finalise falls short on the definition of the project-affected family.

In Singur, the protests have been led by people who did not fall in the category of “affected people’’ and did not even get what the Tatas offered as compensation to the other land-holders. Any ambiguity in this definition will mean that for any project, a large percentage of people would be left out, defeating the entire purpose.

The draft policy excludes all affected families with unclear and no regular title (majority of whom are ST, SC, landless and other vulnerable sections of the population) from any assistance in resettlement and rehabilitation. Experts suggest that for identifying such families, the date of survey should be considered as the cut-off date for non-titleholders. The present definition also excludes persons who are partially affected but not physically displaced.

Experts are working on making these policies more nuanced in order to cover the entire range of affected people. Instead of offering a blanket package to all affected people, R&R provisions should compensate the type and extent of loss. Levels of compensation can be tailored to suit the extent of impact.

The real test of the efficacy of the policy would be whether it covers every affected person in some measure. Whether it does that fully and adequately, will be the next challenge.