Why hue and cry on irrigation projects?

There has been a hue and cry for no reason by some of the so-called intellectuals on the inadequacy of compensation to the affected people in the likely submerged areas of the proposed irrigation projects in the State. Mallannasagar Project is one among them. The reservoir which would provide 50 tmcft of water irrigating about 5 lakh acres (in Ranga Reddy, Medak, Nizamabad, Warangal and Nalgonda districts) is designed in such a way that hardly five to six villages will be submerged.

Here as against the land value of Rs 60,000 per acre, the State government offered Rs 5.08 lakh per acre besides a two bedroom house as well as compensation for all the other properties to be lost. Settlements of all these will be in one go, unlike the installment system under the land acquisition policy. Had it been in accordance with the GoI Land Acquisition Act, the compensation would be a maximum of Rs 2 lakh per acre. In fact, the GoI Act stipulates that compensation for project-affected people are decided by the project authorities as per the existing Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy of Centre/State whichever is more beneficial.

Then, why is this opposed?
Everyone is aware when around 260 villages were submerged under Nagarjunasagar project how many years it took for clearances of claims under the acquisition policy. Against this experience, the Government of Telangana introduced the concept of land procurement based on the consensus of farmer and adequate compensation. Minimising the likely submerged villages is thought of. For example, as against submerging of 64 villages and 59,000 acres as per the design of Palamoor Lift Irrigation of bringing water from Jurala, it is reduced to a couple of small thandas and and just 16, 000 acres in the new design from Srisailam intake. Political and so-called intellectual interference misleading innocent people will only adversely affect the projects.

After the formation of Telangana State, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao concentrated on re-engineering of irrigation projects in the State, aiming at providing water for one crore acres, in all. Constructing as many barrages as possible across River Godavari and making complete use of River Krishna waters is the basis for the comprehensive policy of Telangana State government irrigation projects. LIDAR survey was taken up from Dummugudem to Kaleshwaram, to Medigadda, to Yellampalli reservoir and Mid Manair to Basavapur reservoir and so on.

This includes among others the likely submerging villages, with a view to minimising the number of displaced people. Irrigation officials have been instructed to expedite the land procurement process for the projects. The Chief Minister further directed the officials to pay the value of land and property, which the farmers would lose in the process of land procurement and also pay Rs 5.04 lakh for constructing a new house wherever they desire to have. All these amounts should be released in one go. Care has been taken to ensure that the submergence is bare minimum and loss to villages is very nominal, while constructing the reservoirs.

According to a reference material note circulated by Lok Sabha Secretariat in December 2013 on "Displacement and Rehabilitation of People Due to Developmental Projects" in India, around 50 million people have been displaced due to development projects in over 50 years. The note mentioned that India has invested in industrial projects, dams, roads, mines, power plants and new cities to achieve rapid economic growth. This has been made possible through massive acquisition of land and subsequent displacement of people. In the erstwhile AP alone, due to projects such as water, industry, mines, power etc., the total number of displaced persons is over 32 lakh.

As per the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Plans cleared by the Tribal Affairs Ministry, as many as 3.16 lakh persons, including 1.24 lakh tribals, were affected due to development projects since 1999. Dam building is one of the most important causes for development-related displacement. According to this report, during the last 50 years, some 3,300 big dams have been constructed in India. Many of them have led to large-scale eviction of vulnerable groups.

The situation of the tribal people is of special concern as they constitute 40 to 50 per cent of the displaced population. For the Sardar Sarovar Dam, more than 4 lakh people were affected and Narmada Valley Development Project affected much more than this. Tehri project in Uttarakhand established in 1979 affected more than a lakh of people.

Barring a few exceptions, most projects did not have a clear-cut resettlement plan. Resettlement was undertaken on a case-to-case basis. To mention a few, there were projects like Nagarjunasagar, Hirakud, Tungabhadra and Mayurakshi dams did offer resettlement in the form of house sites to the displaced, but leading to long-standing litigations. Dams, mining industries and other developmental like SEZ projects have displaced people from their homestead and the total number of displaced and affected people runs into millions.

One calculation puts it as the highest number of people uprooted for development projects in the world. The land acquisition procedure has however become a complex one, prohibiting payment of fair compensation to project ousters. The Government of India Act also will not do much justice to the displaced people.

Another interesting example is that of Three Gorges Dam in China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest hydropower project. The massive project set a record in terms of displacing 12 lakh people and flooding 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages as well as in its reservoir length of more than 600 km. It is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. It is located in the middle of the three gorges on the Yangtze River, the third longest in the world, in the Hubei Province of China.

It is 3,937 miles long with an annual discharge of 960 billion cubic meters of water into the East China Sea. Through the Three Gorges Project, China has acquired the know-how to build large hydropower schemes, and has begun exporting similar projects around the world. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW). In 2014 the dam generated 98.8 TWh of electricity.

The Chinese government envisaged four goals for the Three Gorges Dam project, namely Flood Control, Power Generation, Navigation and Tourism. The dam has the capacity to reduce the impact of flooding, since it will have a flood control capacity of 22.15 billion cubic meters. The way in which the Chinese government compensates people moving out is called the “lump sum” method. This method grants people the total net worth of their home and land, according to criteria put in place by the government.

The Three Gorges Dam, despite some negative impact on nearby affected society, does offer the positive benefit of flood control. There is no denial of the fact that if the quality of life of people is to be improved, development projects are a must. When we need to move from “developing to developed” it is likely to affect some people in the larger interests of a large number of people. Let us remember the Greatest Happiness Principle of John Stuart Mill: actions are good when they lead to a higher level of general happiness, and bad when they decrease that level. Then why agitate?

By Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao