The purpose of development is to promote economic growth, alleviate poverty and improve living standards for all, and the outcome is generally beneficial. Sometimes, the consequences can, however, be quite disruptive for the project area people. Projects may acquire their land, forcing them to relocate. The adverse social and economic impacts of such displacement are now well known. People lose their home, land and livelihood, and are often left to face on their own an uncertain future in unfamiliar, if not hostile, places. These are among the risks of impoverishment that frequently come with projects that involve involuntary resettlement.
Worldwide experience has shown that most people who experience forced relocation are unable to regain their losses, ending up worse off than before . In India, the track record of efforts undertaken to resettle displaced people remains quite dismal. Thus, as a result of development efforts that are intended to improve living conditions for people, millions have become worse off, a situation in direct opposition to what development stands for. Generally, the worst affected happen to be the poor. The fact is that the process of development is unintentionally adding to their numbers, and not reducing poverty.
Involuntary resettlement associated with development projects is, however, not a problem that will go away in the foreseeable future. With government aiming to achieve new highs in economic growth, and the private sector emerging as a major player in the development process under globalisation pressures, displacement in the years ahead is set to occur on a much larger scale than before. The growing impoverishment, in turn, is fuelling opposition to projects, which is increasingly turning aggressive, demanding even rollback of otherwise well-meant initiatives in some cases.
It is, however, becoming obvious that the lack of attention to resettlement issues not only harms the project area people, but has other serious implications as well. Project costs go up when discontented people mount protests that can completely upset implementation schedules, resulting in huge time and cost overruns. Providing adequate resettlement assistance to those displaced by development projects is, therefore, not only ethically correct, but also makes good economic sense. The cost of not doing adequate resettlement can often be much more than doing resettlement well.
Experience suggests that, though stubborn, resettlement problems are not insurmountable. A fuller understanding of the issues involved in managing resettlement is, however, essential if projects are to stay on track, harming none and yet generating benefits for all. This article attempts to look closely at selected legal, policy, planning and management issues that critically affect resettlement outcomes.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR LAND ACQUISITION
Laws to specifically deal with resettlement issues generally do not exist. What exist are laws regulating the acquisition of privately owned land. Most of these laws were not enacted with the resettlement issues in view, as resettlement was not an issue when these laws were made. In India, the law on land acquisition was enacted in the nineteenth century, when maintenance of law and order, and not development, was the main focus of the colonial government. This archaic law, still operative, was not intended to address the problems that people now face due to acquisition of their land for dams, thermal power stations, mining operations, highways, airports, SEZs and other development projects.
In India, lands, buildings and other immovable properties are mostly acquired under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 (as amended in 1984), which is presently under further amendment. This law, based on the doctrine of eminent domain, gives the state unilateral powers to take over privately owned land for a public purpose on payment of compensation. For a large number of people who have no formal title to land but otherwise depend on it, including landowners, subtenants, sharecroppers, landless labourers, encroachers and shifting cultivators, there is no compensation whatsoever. Experience indicates that the exercise of eminent domain operates wholly to the disadvantage of people whose land is acquired. No doubt persons who lose their land are entitled to compensation, but the amount is never enough to buy an equivalent piece of land. This happens because the compensation amount is determined on the basis of the land’s market value, not its replacement value. No wonder people losing their land are seldom able to re-establish themselves, swelling instead the number of development-induced poor.
A major criticism of the Indian land acquisition law is that it does not define public purpose. This is left to the state agencies to determine on a case by case basis, but their decisions regarding land requirement for projects can often be arbitrary, leading to the acquisition of land far in excess of actual requirement, causing displacement that is better avoided.
POLICY GUIDELINES ON RESETTLEMENT
There were also no resettlement policies anywhere until the late 1980s. In the absence of policy, projects addressed resettlement issues as they arose in a purely ad hoc manner, through promulgation of instructions that were specific to the project causing displacement. Gradually, sector-specific policies applicable to all projects within that particular sector merged. There was no uniformity either in project-specific instructions or sector-specific policies, which varied from project to project and sector to sector. Often, the affected people received resettlement assistance that differed markedly from one project to the other in the same country.
A policy signifies government commitment to ensure adequate resettlement. It is the project-affected people who suffer the most in the absence of such a commitment. They do not know what help to expect and from what agency when suddenly faced with the prospect of losing their home, land and livelihood. According to a World Bank study, most impoverishment that occurs can be attributed to the lack of policy on resettlement. The World Bank issued its policy statement on involuntary resettlement in 1980. It has since been updated on several occasions, with the October 2001 update being the latest. The World Bank policy has served as a template for several other policies, such as the policies issued by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and other international development agencies.
Given the disruptive nature of the involuntary resettlement process, the World Bank policy recommendation is to avoid it as far as possible. For people who, despite all efforts to avoid it, must still be resettled, the policy objective is to ensure reestablishment in ways that improve their standards of living, and do not just restore them to pre-project levels. The World Bank policy is also emphatic that for resettlement not to be reduced to the physical relocation of people and reproduction of their pre-displacement conditions, all resettlement operations must be planned and implemented as development programmes.
In India, there was no national resettlement policy until recently on an issue that affects millions of people every year. An exercise to formulate a national policy began a long time ago, but all that came out first in 2004 was a resettlement policy that failed to meet the expectations it had aroused. Hence, NGOs that were critical of the lack of a policy in the first place, continued to be critical of the policy that emerged. In 2007, a new policy was issued, which, in some respects, is an improvement over the 2004 policy; but this too does not go far enough to fully meet the needs of the affected people. In 2006, Odisha issued a comprehensive resettlement policy, becoming the first state in India to do so.
Most governments and public sector undertakings appear reluctant to the idea of issuing resettlement policies that conform to international standards, preferring an ad hoc approach instead. In some cases, where resettlement policies have been formulated under donor agency influence, they are owned reluctantly as an imposition, to be applied only when it becomes unavoidable. For example, the Coal India Limited (CIL) operates about 500 mines in different parts of the country, but its resettlement policy formulated in connection with a World Bank loan remained effective only in those 25 mines that were part of the Coal Sector Environment and Social Mitigation Project (CSESMP).
While policies are important, the related issue of compliance with the policies often does not receive adequate attention. There persists a massive gap between resettlement policy and actual practice. This criticism applies even in cases where the projects are funded by international agencies. While they may be impressive on paper, the resettlement guidelines drafted by international agencies have been problematic with regard to their consistent application.
THE PLANNING OF RESETTLEMENT
Resettlement planning provides the means to mitigate the adverse impacts of displacement, and to create development opportunities for project-affected people. When population displacement is on a large scale, the World Bank and other policies on involuntary resettlement require the preparation of a resettlement action plan (RAP). Until recently, systematic resettlement planning was, however, largely unknown. When undertaken to stem the opposition to projects and such crisis situations, actions that the authorities initiated were purely ad hoc, in which long-term development programmes meant to fully re-establish resettlers seldom figured. This effectively reduced resettlement to relocation, relieving projects of any further responsibility towards the affected people.
The first requirement for planning resettlement is that there be a reasonable estimate of the number of people that will be affected, but even this basic information is often unavailable.
As resettlement experience has shown, poor preparation of resettlement plans is the single most important reason for failure of resettlement components in development projects. Poor preparation leads to delays, increased costs, foregone benefits, which negatively impact human communities affected and subvert the development objectives of civil works projects. In particularly difficult instances, poor resettlement preparation leads to unwelcome political backlash, unintentional environmental degradation, and the unanticipated creation of “development refugees”.
Resettlement is primarily a management issue. Actual relocation—the moving of people, animals, household possessions, etc—is a matter of demanding logistics. For people to be able to live at new sites, basic services have to be in place, water and temporary housing being the most important. Sooner rather than later, a range of civic amenities too should be available, such as medical facilities, schools, bus services, electricity, temples, churches and other public buildings. In addition, the provision of adequate opportunities for reconstruction of livelihood is basic to the sustainability of the entire resettlement process. All this depends a great deal on administrative capacity, flexibility and continuity.
There are several resettlement planning and implementation issues, which often fail to receive adequate attention. Some of them are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Social impact assessment
Resettlement is a potentially impoverishing process. A major flaw in resettlement planning is that generally an assessment of potential adverse impacts of projects is not conducted properly. This is also true of projects financed by the World Bank, known for its meticulous methods of researching and documenting the minutest of project details. It is not uncommon for large numbers of affected people to go uncounted at the planning stage. When impacts are not fully identified initially, it becomes difficult to fully mitigate them later. For projects funded by the World Bank, a review found the actual number of people to be resettled 47 per cent higher than the estimate made at the time of appraisal.
The remoteness of many project sites makes social impact assessment a difficult exercise. The assessment task is further complicated by the fact that not all losses are quantifiable. For example, people often miss their social networks and lament the loss of access to their traditional places of worship in their new locations, but there is no way to either assess or compensate such impacts in any measurable way.
In addition, the resources provided to carry out census, socioeconomic surveys and related studies, including consultant input, are never adequate. The need to analyse social factors that may influence (and are influenced by) a project continues throughout the life of that project. But most agencies consider social impact assessment (SIA) of some use only in the design stage (as without completing the paperwork required, it is not possible to obtain loan from donor agencies). While the theory of social assessment may seem to demand multidisciplinary teams of exceptionally gifted individuals working over an extended period, the reality is usually somewhat more prosaic. Surely anthropologists and sociologists are slotted in, but typically their input is too brief, no longer than one or two man-months on projects where the total planning input of several man-years is not uncommon. Social impact assessments based on whistle-stop tours by visiting experts clearly have their own limitations.
While environmental impact assessment of projects has more or less come to be accepted as a norm, the social impact assessment is often carried out as a component of the environmental impact assessment. As a result, it is often not given the same importance that is now generally attached to environmental impact assessment. It is important that social impact assessments are treated as a distinct type of project preparation activity, in much the same way as other assessments.
Participation
The fact that all development projects improve with the active participation of stakeholders is now widely accepted. However, the question often asked is: Is this truism also applicable in the case of projects that involve resettlement? And can the people who are forced to relocate be expected to cooperate with project authorities, whom they hold accountable for all their woes?
It is perhaps oxymoronic to speak of ‘participation’ in reservoir-driven relocation, since the move is inherently involuntary. Yet, successful resettlement depends in very large part on an active participation of those forced to move. Not only does participation facilitate identification with the move and lessen the dependency common in these projects, it provides management with information critical to sound decision-making.
Participation in decision making as a right of the project-affected people is also gaining wide support on the ground that in giving up their homes and livelihoods for the sake of projects, they make an important contribution to the development process as a whole. No project can ever get off the ground without their sacrifice. Moreover, as experience has shown, when people are consulted in the planning of resettlement package for them, they do not retract later, and even lend a helping hand to the management in implementing those plans.
Another outstanding feature was the degree to which the displaced people were informed, consulted, and integrated as participants in the preparation process. The participatory approach served the purpose of combating tendencies toward sullen and resentful dependency, which often beset the people whose lives are autocratically controlled by others. Participation also provided planners with access to the expectations, beliefs, and knowledge system of the people for whom they were planning, which made possible the prevention of design errors by checking proposal details with them.
However, despite the known virtues of participation, the general tendency is to exclude the involvement of project-affected people in resettlement activities as much as possible. Participation seems to lack sufficient support in higher bureaucratic echelons. Senior administrators, apparently in a hurry all the time, have no patience with participatory approaches that require time as well as financial commitment. They want to get on with the job somehow or the other. Often, the affected people first learn about the project when one fine morning they are handed a legal notice that their land is being taken over for project requirements. By that time, the project is almost ready for launch, leaving no scope for any design change that may save them from avoidable displacement.
Vulnerable groups
Vulnerable groups include people who, by virtue of gender, ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, economic disadvantage, or social status, may be more adversely affected by resettlement than others, and who may be limited in their ability to claim or take advantage of resettlement assistance and related development benefits.. In many ways, the problems of women, indigenous peoples, encroachers, squatters and other such groups are different, and merit special attention in the planning and implementation of resettlement.
Gender
While displacement has severe consequences for all, for women, these are particularly devastating. Regardless of differences in caste, class, religion or region, women everywhere bear the brunt of the forced move a lot more than the male members of their families. Resettlement results in their marginalisation in various ways. Generally, women lose their earlier income opportunities, and are forced to the margins of the labour market. The loss of their previous access to food, fodder and fuel-wood, coupled with the difficulties they encounter accessing them in the new place, makes life a hard struggle. Their participation in decision making is next to nothing, although men admit that consulting the women in the process of site selection and other matters can avert many of the hardships that arise in a new place.
Indigenous people
Indigenous people have suffered centuries of exploitation and displacement. Even after half a century of development, they remain outside the pale of any form of visible change in their condition. Currently, large-scale development projects present a major threat to the lives of these peoples in many parts of the world, particularly in India. Many areas with a heavy concentration of indigenous peoples happen to be rich in hydrologic, forest, mineral oil and other resources, and this at once makes these areas attractive locations for projects of various kinds. It should then come as no surprise that indigenous peoples constitute a disproportionately large segment of those adversely affected by development projects. In India, 40 per cent of all those who have been displaced are tribal people.
Generally, development projects prove harmful to indigenous people, especially because they often lack legal recognition and a voice in governance issues. They are particularly vulnerable because they have no individual rights on land. In the absence of any legal title, there is no basis on which to prepare a compensation package in lieu of their land . Moreover, compensation packages, where provided, have been utterly inadequate to compensate for the loss of land, livelihood, and break-up of their communities and culture. The trauma of resettlement is also exacerbated for indigenous communities because of their strong spiritual ties to their land, and their apprehension that once they move, their way of life will be lost forever. For indigenous peoples, displacement is indeed an unmitigated disaster.
Compensation
This is a critical issue in any resettlement programme. Resettlement efforts will come to nothing if the affected people are not compensated adequately. Traditionally, compensation approaches have revolved mainly around the following four alternatives: cash, land, employment, and self-employment.
Cash
In the past, resettlement simply meant the payment of cash in lieu of land and other properties taken over for project purposes. However, when the affected people are given compensation in cash and then left to their own devices, they often get impoverished. First, compensation is given only to those persons whose properties the project acquires, ignoring others who lack ownership rights but are in occupation of the assets and depend on them for their living. For example, agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, landless workers, tribal people, hunters, nomadic herders and other such people, who often constitute large groups most severely affected by displacement, are not entitled to compensation.
Second, even those who receive compensation are not able to get back to the kind of living that they lose. Land acquisition procedures do not provide compensation amount enough to purchase land and other assets of comparable worth. The fact is that most landowners losing land are rarely able to own land again. The source of much impoverishment associated with displacement is thus the prevailing compensatory approaches to resettlement.
Third, the bureaucratic way in which compensation payment is made, often after a long wait and in instalments over a period of time, prevents the affected people from moving to the new place and resettle as quickly as possible.
Fourth, getting the compensation amount is not a simple matter for most poor people. Project authorities are not known for their integrity in seeing that the rightful claimants get their dues promptly, and in a hassle-free manner. In many a case, ‘a major portion of compensation amount goes in getting it’. Rampant corruption hits the poor the hardest. They rarely get in their hands the full amount of compensation for their properties, meant to aid them in getting back on their feet.
Finally, a major problem with monetary compensation is that most displaced people, especially tribal people and those from remote villages, do not know what to do with cash in quantities that they see for the first time in their lives. In the excitement, they forget that they need the money to rebuild their lives and lose no time in going on a spending spree. Money is thus frittered away in ways least likely to support their reestablishment.
Land
Where rural people are involved, programmes that relocate them to agricultural land of comparable size and quality often prove successful.
Thus, land for the displaced people with agricultural background from rural areas remains the best way to compensate them as no occupational change is involved. No wonder this is a form of compensation which is much preferred by those who lose land.
The mere acquisition of a piece of land in a new place does not, however, mean that resettlers get any closer to recovery, let alone complete reestablishment. New hurdles keep coming up. In many places, the quality of land given as compensation is not comparable to that of the land acquired.
Land given as compensation is often not free from ownership disputes. As a result, the land continues to be in the possession of some other people, and the allotment in the name of the displaced remains only on paper. This happened to people displaced by the Sariska Tiger Sanctuary project in Rajasthan. Allotment letters were distributed to the displaced by the chief minister at a specially organised function, but they were unable to get possession of the land on the basis of the letters. The local land records official did not help them on the ground that some other people already had farms on the same land, and that according to records, the legal ownership titles to the land were in their names .
Also, the land given is generally too far from the original village, and the displaced people do not wish to disconnect completely with their native places. Moreover, some problems arise due to the unavailability of land in areas large enough to accommodate the entire affected population from one village at one place. For this reason, people who would like to move together to one place are instead moved to different places. Thus, they get dispersed due to land availability constraints. This dispersal, however, affects the existing social bonds, social capital built over the years.
Despite the many problems that come with new land, it remains the best resettlement option for people displaced from their land in rural areas. Arguably, no other means of making a living can provide the sense of security that land can. The scarcity of land is, however, a major limiting factor in pursuing land-centred compensatory approaches. There is no easy way in which project authorities can overcome land scarcity. Perhaps the only way they can do it is by buying land from those willing to sell it, but this may result in displacement of the sellers. It remains doubtful if they can manage to meet the demand this way.
Employment
The practice of offering jobs in the projects as compensation for land or other loss has been followed in many projects. Often, people who get permanent jobs are able to resettle themselves even more quickly than those who get land. This explains the never-ending clamour for jobs, especially the permanent jobs in public sector enterprises. In addition, there are several benefits that go with such jobs, such as the cost of living allowance, annual increments, leave and travel concessions, education allowance for children, besides pension after retirement. For the affected people, a job with a public sector organisation means a lot, not only as a permanent source of good income but also as a status symbol.
For long, the CIL, a government of India undertaking, was able to follow the practice of providing jobs in mines to compensate loss of land. This could be done in the past as jobs then were not as scarce as land. With the modernisation of mining operations, the number of available jobs has rapidly come down, and now falls short of the growing demand. The CIL view now is that the entire coal industry in India is groaning under the weight of overstaffing, and time has come to cry a halt to the practice of giving jobs in exchange for land acquired.
However, CIL is not the only mining company that finds it impossible to provide jobs as compensation for land loss. In an era when the industry is downsizing to survive in a highly competitive world, it is certainly in no position to provide permanent jobs. The challenge for CIL, which once used the jobs-for-land method of compensation, is how to wean people away from the lure of permanent jobs.
Self-employment
Where land and job options are no longer available, self-employment and income-generation schemes are being introduced. CIL, under the World Bank-aided Social and Environmental Mitigation Project (ESMP)—part of a wider project to modernise CIL’s mining operations—laid particular emphasis on such schemes. Overall, results from the CIL self-help, income-generation schemes have not been very promising. This may be due to a lack of proper planning. In some cases, skill training has been provided, but this has not been followed up with assistance in gaining access to credit and marketing opportunities. Training programmes also failed to take note of the fact that coping with poverty typically involves engaging in many different activities simultaneously, in a constant effort to make both ends meet. In fact, ESMP made no provision in its budget to provide start-up capital to enable people to start their businesses after training. These ill-planned efforts meant that in the absence of start-up capital and marketing assistance, resettlers could not do anything productive with their training. Also, the training was conducted without taking the demand factor into account. For one village, the training programme turned out tailors in huge numbers, making it impossible for all tailors to remain gainfully employed in that small place. Another major planning deficiency was that the monitoring systems were not in place which could track resettlers’ progress with income generation (or the lack of it).
The fact is that unless properly organised, skill training programmes fail more frequently than they succeed.
New approaches to improving resettlement
Some new approaches to resettlement, aimed at improving the lives of displaced people, are now emerging. These approaches go well beyond the policy of compensation in cash for the land loss, a policy which has only caused much impoverishment. These novel ways of addressing resettlement include the following:
■ Displaced people as project partners: Currently, all that people get is compensation for land loss, which is never enough to regain the lost livelihood, let alone improve their living standards. The fact is that people who contribute land need to be recognised as shareholders; they contribute their share in the form of land, without which no project can get off the ground. Gradually, approaches that involve the displaced people as shareholders, and even as co-project managers, are emerging in many places. For example, in India, the new resettlement policy of Odisha provides for equity in case of industrial and mining projects. Specifically, the policy provides that at the option of the displaced family, the project may issue convertible preference share up to a maximum of 50 per cent of the one-time cash assistance. Such innovative mechanisms should, however, be used with some caution (World Bank: 2004). The project needs to have a sufficient guarantee of profitability. A loss-making project will expose the people to risks best avoided. Although this method is a great innovation, capable of giving incremental benefits to displaced persons, it should be offered as an option, not as a blanket entitlement. Depending on their risk-taking profile, displaced persons may want to use part of their compensation to invest in project equity.
■ Benefit sharing: Projects generate many benefits and new income-generation opportunities, but at present, these are seldom shared with the affected people. They are therefore entitled to be included conceptually, financially, and institutionally among the sharers in the projects’ benefits. Sharing of benefits is also a way to make the development process more inclusive.
STRENGTHENING MANAGEMENT CAPACITY
Project resettlement units
While the resettlement policy can go a long way in ensuring that people are saved from disruptive displacement impacts, good intentions of the policy may not always fructify. An implementation agency must also be in place and be in good shape. That alone can translate the policy and planning aims into tangible benefits.
As a separate entity, resettlement units within the overall management structure of the project have come into existence only in the last 10-15 years. Projects, especially those funded by World Bank and Asian Development Bank, are way ahead of others in this respect. In India, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited and CIL, two major public sector undertakings, took the lead in creating resettlement units within their establishments. Under growing pressures to provide a better deal to project-affected people, resettlement units are now being gradually established for most large projects, to plan, coordinate, implement and monitor the day-to-day implementation of all activities pertaining to resettlement.
Resettlement units that have come into existence lately do not conform to any preset institutional design. Usually they take one of t he following two broad forms.
(a) The common practice is to establish a resettlement unit within the department or the agency responsible for the main investment project. The agency, in this case, retains the responsibility to coordinate all resettlement activities, including land acquisition, relocation and income restoration, tasks that are normally carried out by other agencies (district administration, state and central governments, NGOs, etc). This also allows the staff in the resettlement unit to work more closely with the staff in the main project, whose support is vital to the resettlement task.
(b) The other institutional arrangement for departments or agencies implementing the investment project is to have an outside agency charged with the responsibility for the entire resettlement operation. Where resettlement involved is substantial, an independent authority, which has clearly defined legal, administrative and financial powers, would indeed appear to be a better option. This is how the Sardar Sarovar Project is organised, with all resettlement functions assigned to a separate, independent corporation.
Personnel
Displacement is a traumatic experience for project-affected people and, therefore, the resettlement task ought to be handled by personnel who are not only trained but are also sympathetic to the poor. A major reason for the growing dissatisfaction of project-affected people with government resettlement plans is the poor quality of personnel. More often than not, the persons chosen for such sensitive jobs happen to be those least suited for them. In terms of power and perks that go with government jobs, these jobs rank among the lowest. Therefore, officials who are posted to handle resettlement are often those out of favour with the government. They come to the resettlement job with their own frustrations, and even begin to see themselves as displacees of another kind. Under the circumstances, it is unrealistic to expect them to work with zeal and devotion, and be sympathetic to project-affected people.
In most projects, the staff lack skills needed to help people suffering from stresses and disorders of displacement and rehabilitation. There are several examples of government ministries deciding that people be removed but not saying how this should be done, leaving it to minions in the field who have no relevant capacity or training whatsoever. As resettlement requires expertise, an interdisciplinary team that includes social scientists and community development experts should be in charge of resettlement during the entire implementation phase. The team can operate effectively only when it is an integral part of the project management team, and not just its appendage.
Some projects have attempted to strengthen resettlement units by inducting social scientists on an ad hoc basis. Others have created a separate cadre of officers for resettlement. However, the conditions under which resettlement personnel work are generally not congenial. In Odisha, the resettlement officer is a key link in the chain of responsibilities for resettlement. Yet, he is so severely understaffed, and so overloaded with a myriad of responsibilities, that it is almost impossible to imagine that his job was ever intended to function effectively.
Coordination
The resettlement task cannot be carried out by the resettlement agency alone, acting in isolation all on its own. On several issues, it needs to coordinate with other divisions or sections within the project. These may include engineering, environment, finance, personnel and law. For example, during the implementation phase, resettlement activities need to be closely coordinated with the likely timing of civil works. When civil construction works start before people are moved to the new site, their hurried relocation at the last minute inevitably becomes a crash programme, full of stress not only for the people to be relocated but also for the resettlement officials concerned. Such hardships are entirely avoidable through better coordination.
In addition, a resettlement agency needs to coordinate with many other agencies outside the project. These include government agencies with responsibilities for agriculture, small-scale industry, health, education and community development. Without their cooperation, new sites cannot become fully functional. Nicely constructed resettlement colonies, built years ago, exist in many project areas, but often there are no doctors in clinics and no teachers in schools. Many income-generation activities depend on the support of government agencies, and these activities cannot take off if there is no effective coordination between the resettlement agency and the other relevant government agencies concerned.
Resettlement costs and budget
Resettlement costs are a small percentage of the total project cost in most cases. Studies have shown that even a substantial increase in resettlement costs has minimal effect on project viability. Yet, projects tend to systematically underestimate the budgetary requirements for resettlement costs. Resettlement budgets, in many cases, are not able to meet even the cost of land acquisition.
Grievance redress
When resettlement is planned and implemented with the involvement of affected people, there should not remain any scope for complaints. Yet, there could be groups or individuals that think that their problems are not being adequately addressed. Howsoever trivial the grievances may appear, it is unwise to ignore them.
If projects fail to resolve grievances at their level, the people have no option but to seek other means for resolution of their problems. And now there are several avenues open to them to vent their grievances. They can mount a protest campaign with the support of activist groups; they can seek intervention of the higher authorities; can go to courts or get their problems raised in Parliament. They can approach the human rights commission or even knock at the doors of the World Bank’s inspection panel.
Although people now have several options to seek grievance redressaI, the processes involved are time consuming. The disputes regarding compensation amount are a case in point. Although people often succeed in extracting increases over the earlier awards, the legal disputes take years to get resolved. The legal system in India is known for long delays, but delays in the resolution of grievance can cost the projects heavily.
Establishing a grievance redressal mechanism is, therefore, in the best interests of the project itself. Committees set up for grievance redressal should involve the affected people. The mechanism should be transparent in its working. Projects should not only be accountable, but also appear to be so. People should know that the grievance redressal system exists, and functions efficiently in ways that are transparent and accountable.
THE ROLE OF NGOS
Because involuntary resettlement is essentially a disruptive process, it has become a highly contentious issue, and NGOs have not remained undivided on this issue either. The fact is that NGOs are not a homogeneous group. Perhaps nothing illustrates better the sharp differences in the NGO community than the situation of NGO movements in the Narmada dam project area. While some NGOs are supportive of the resettlement plans and are willing to lend a helping hand to such initiatives, there are others whose confrontational stance tends to obstruct the resettlement process, unintentionally hurting the very people whom they wish to help. Resettlement agencies are now increasingly turning to NGOs for help in dealing with the problems of involuntary resettlement. In India, a large number of NGOs have been contracted to carry out resettlement operations by several major public sector organisations, especially those being funded by the World Bank and other external donor agencies. For long, NGOs have been generally viewed as troublemakers by government agencies. Partly their campaigns against development projects, often conducted with international support, strengthened such negative perceptions about them.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
The best of resettlement plans may face problems during implementation, and not stay on track. Timely detection of these problems and their resolution are critical to achieving resettlement objectives. Effective monitoring can help accomplish this task. Yet, monitoring is one resettlement task that is much neglected.
Regular monitoring provides periodic checks to ascertain whether resettlement activities are proceeding according to the plan. It provides an information-management system for project managers as well as a channel for the affected people to make known their needs and their reactions to resettlement implementation. Evaluation, on the other hand, is an exercise usually undertaken towards the end of the project to assess whether the plan achieved its intended goals.
The association of affected people in monitoring activities is now widely recommended, as it can greatly improve the quality of monitoring, and as a consequence, the overall quality of the implementation process. No other group of people can provide better feedback on resettlement performance.
Finally, as the experience has shown, involuntary resettlement is intrinsically an impoverishing process. Studies have clearly demonstrated that resettlement-related impoverishment negates the high priority poverty-reduction effort, and is, thus, just the opposite of what development aims for. If development is not to add to the number of the poor, it will be unwise to ignore resettlement.
By Hari Mohan Mathur
(A former Chief Secretary of Rajasthan and UN Advisor, the author is now a Visiting Professor at Council for Social Development, New Delhi. He has just edited a volume, titled “Resettling Displaced People: Policy and Practice in India”.)
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