Orissa: Mines of conflict

Prafulla Das in Bhubaneswar, Nov 18 2005: The Orissa government has handed over to private companies virtually all the iron ore mines, which are in some of the most underdeveloped districts of the State, leading to protests by tribal people and environmental activists.

HOME

IRON ore deposits could well be Orissa's passport to a bright future. With the upswing in the global demand for steel, which is obtained after the reddish-grey ore is put through a blast furnace, Orissa is the toast of the country and perhaps the world. There is an unprecedented flow of capital into the State. From global giants such as South Korea's Pohang Steel Company (POSCO) to obscure ones such as Bhushan Steel, steel-makers are making a beeline to Bhubaneswar to sign memoranda of understanding (MoU) to set up plants. Their eyes are set on the huge deposits of iron ore in the predominantly tribal regions of the mineral-rich State. Besides iron ore (32.9 per cent of the country's reserves), Orissa has bauxite (59.95 per cent), chromite (98.4 per cent), coal (24.8 per cent) and manganese (67.6 per cent).

While the State government hopes to cash in on the demand for the ore, for the tribal people the mining spells doom. Haunted by the spectre of losing their home and hearth to the steel plants, they are up in arms against the industrialisation wave. Tribal people from Kalinganagar in Jajpur district to Kashipur in Rayagada fear that the new industries would lead to the poisoning of their water and air. Those leading the agitation against the mine-hunters argue that the ongoing industrialisation in the State would only create an army of homeless persons and add to the millions of tribal people displaced by development projects in the country.

According to a paper on tribal people prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC), more than nine million tribal people have been displaced by development projects in the country over the last 50 years and only 60 per cent of them have benefited from any sort of rehabilitation. "The kind of capital-intensive industrialisation that is being pursued in Orissa will not help solve the unemployment problem. Rather it will harm the environment and affect the livelihoods of a large number of people, especially tribal people who depend on the forest and other natural resources to eke out a living," said Sudhir Patnaik, a social scientist.

Former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, who is the president of the Orissa unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says that displacement will affect the socio-economic conditions of the people and this is a major issue. "When a project comes up in any locality it affects not only the tribal people, but also the community as a whole," says Oram. He has been vehemently opposing the12-million-tonne POSCO steel project near Paradip. Thousands of people who were displaced by the Rourkela Steel Plant, the Hirakud dam, the Rengali dam, and many other medium and small projects have not been compensated till date, he says.

But, for the steel-makers and the governments at the Centre and in the State, the issues of displacement and environmental pollution do not seem to be matters of concern. With the global demand for steel growing, the Union Cabinet recently unveiled a new steel policy that seeks to shore up the per annum steel production from 30 million tonnes to 100 million tonnes by 2020. But going by the current rush for iron ore in Orissa, the country may achieve the target well before the deadline, notwithstanding the losses to the tribal people's livelihood and to the environment. At present, the only steel plant in the State is at Rourkela in Sundargarh district. Run by Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), it produces barely 1.6 million tonnes of steel per annum. In the last two years, the Biju Janata Dal-BJP alliance government signed 43 MoUs with private companies for the setting up of as many greenfield steel plants. These projects, when fully commissioned, will produce a whopping 58.4 million tonnes of steel per annum. The State government's Steel and Mines Department estimates the investment in these steel plants to the tune of Rs.1,37,157.85 crores. Ten more companies are said to be in the queue to sign MoUs for setting up steel plants in the State.

The ruling alliance, which, in its election manifesto last year, promised to make Orissa the No.1 State in the country, is now working overtime to quicken the pace of industrialisation. But in the process, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his colleagues seem to forget that they would be handing over all the iron ore mines to private companies at one go. The areas that would witness mining of iron ore and the setting up of new steel plants and captive power plants are Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Jajpur, Dhenkanal and Angul districts, which are some of the most underdeveloped districts in the State.

Rampant mining of iron ore is already going on in Keonjhar and Sundargarh by mining and steel-making companies, whereas the government has failed to provide basic health care to the people in these areas. Most of the primary health centres in these areas have no doctors. "The people living in this iron-ore-rich belt also suffer from ailments on account of the pollution caused by the sponge iron units and the mining activity," said Sudhanshu Panda, president of the Keonjhar Suraksha Parishad, which has organised protests against the mining in the Malangtoli hills. Many schools in these regions manage without the required number of teachers and the majority of the interior villages have no roads and electricity.

The less said about the condition of the main roads the better. Trucks and tipper-lorries carrying iron ore keep damaging the roads and it takes about four hours to cover a distance of 40 km. But why are heavy vehicles queuing up in the iron ore belt when the State has just one operational steel plant? It would take another couple of years before any of the proposed steel plants need the ore. The 70 pollution-causing sponge iron units currently consume about a few hundred tonnes a day, which is a fraction of the thousands of tonnes of ore extracted every day.

A few large steel-makers dispatch ore to other States where they have their plants, while the rest is exported. According to the State Steel and Mines Department, 15.68 million tonnes of iron ore from the State was exported through Paradip, Haldia and Visakhapatnam ports during 2004-05 by 55 companies, including Tata Iron and Steel Company (Tisco), Jindal Steel and Mines Ltd. (JSPL), and Essar Steel. Orissa's iron ore reserves are estimated at 5,428 million tonnes. Of this, 3,133 million tonnes is in mines leased out to private companies and 766 million tonnes has been given to government-run agencies. That leaves the State government with reserves of only 1,529 million tonnes.

However, State Steel and Mines Minister Padmanabha Behera does not foresee any shortage of iron ore for the proposed steel plants. Many companies like Tisco and JSPL own mines, while others would be granted mining leases to meet their ore requirement, he said. Of the 43 companies that signed the MoUs, 17 have started construction of steel plants and around 10 of them are nearing completion. Ironically, the State government does not have a mining policy despite the fact that it is about to pass on almost all its iron ore reserves to private companies. "We are now operating as per the Centre's mineral policy as formulating a policy of our own has not been possible so far," Behera said.

As the rush for iron ore hots up in the northern Orissa districts, the queue for bauxite is getting longer in the southern belt. Four big alumina refineries have been planned, to be set up by Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta Alumina, the Indo-Canadian joint venture project Utkal Alumina, Aditya Alumina and a joint venture of L&T and the Gulf-based Dubai Aluminium Ltd, in Kalahandi, Rayagada and Koraput districts. Construction of two of them has started - at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi and Kashipur in Rayagada - despite strident opposition from tribal people and other organisations. In spite of the large-scale displacement of tribal people and Dalits, Orissa does not have a comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation policy. The State Revenue Department assigned the job to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with financial help from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID).

The UNDP prepared the draft policy after holding detailed consultations with the various stakeholders, including industry groups, non-governmental organisations and different departments of the State government. The draft was submitted to the State government in July. However, the industry lobby and a section of bureaucrats are said to be against it. As the proponents of industrialisation ride roughshod over the voices of protest, it is the environment that is in danger.

Sundargarh and Keonjhar have some of the best forests with abundant wildlife which include elephants, tigers and leopards. The Niyamgiri hills of Kalahandi, home to a variety of medicinal plants and wild orchids, are also facing the threat of mining. Many plant species are endangered and listed in the Red Data Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

"Indiscriminate mining would have a drastic impact on forests and natural water sources, besides driving away wildlife from the region on account of the blasting and drilling for ore extraction," says Biswajit Mohanty, an environmentalist. Mining-related deforestation has led to a shrinkage of elephant corridors and an increase in man-elephant conflicts in Keonjhar. The district has seen 61 elephant deaths in the past three years. Almost all these mine areas are forested and are major perennial sources of water. It is apprehended that open-cast mining would lead to the disappearance of the streams and pollute the major drinking water sources for the tribal people. The Niyamgiri hills, with a huge bauxite deposit, has 32 known perennial springs which feed the Vamsadhara and Nagabali rivers. But with the State intent on counting its immediate financial gains, the protests by desperate tribal people are not likely to be heard in the corridors of power.

Silencing protests

by Prafulla Das, 18 November,2005:
Rabindra Jarka, president of the Bisthapan Virodhi Manch (Forum Against Displacement), had not exactly bargained for a Diwali behind bars. He was whisked away by the police on October 25 when he was coming out of a meeting held in Bhubaneswar as part of the agitation against the displacement of tribal people at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district. Jarka is now lodged in the Jajpur Sub-Jail.

This is not the first time that tribal people opposing industrialisation have been incarcerated. On May 9, they were lathi-charged while protesting against the bhoomi puja of a steel plant project at Kalinganagar, where several steel plants, including a six-million-tonne project by Tata Steel, are coming up. Four persons, including two children, died as a result of police brutalities in subsequent days. Twenty-six persons, 25 of them women, were arrested, while 30 others were named as accused. The arrested persons were released after a long spell in judicial custody. In the picturesque Kashipur block of Rayagada district, 48 persons were arrested between December 2004 and June this year. As many as 23 persons, including 12 tribal people from Kucheipadar village, are in judicial custody, while the rest have been released on bail.

Kucheipadar, a tribal village with a population of 1,500, has been the cradle of the anti-alumina agitation in Kashipur, which has been going on for more than a decade. Interestingly, none of the 48 persons was arrested for opposing the alumina refinery project of Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL), a joint venture of the Birla group and Alcan of Canada, but rather on criminal charges.

Now an uneasy calm prevails in Kashipur. Fear of displacement and loss of livelihood has put the tribal people on the warpath against the government and the company authorities who seem to be working in tandem to set up the one-million-tonne-capacity refinery. The presence of a platoon of Orissa State Armed Police personnel inside the company's complex near the refinery site has only added to the fear. Utkal Alumina has allowed the police to use one of its buildings as a police post in order to provide "law and order support".

"The Naveen Patnaik government is out to ensure industrialisation at gunpoint, ignoring the genuine concerns of the affected people," says Bhagwan Majhi, a resident of Kucheipadar and the convener of the Prakrutika Sampad Suraksha Parishad (PSSP), which has been opposing the project since land acquisition started in 1995. "We are very much against the alumina project because the refinery and mining of bauxite from the Baphlimali hills would adversely affect the livelihood of the tribal people and spoil the region's environment," said Majhi. The people of Kucheipadar, who depend upon agriculture and non-timber forest produce, have been virtually under house arrest since December last. They complained that policemen on duty in the area harassed them whenever they went to the nearby villages or to the local market.

A total of 24 villages will be affected by the alumina project. People in three of the villages will be displaced and those in the others will lose their land. Although 2,155 acres (862 hectares) of land was required for the project, 154 acres, belonging to the people of Kucheipadar, has now been taken out of the project area in view of their protest. But the administration is silent about the police highhandedness in Kashipur. Work on the project was stopped in December 2000 after three persons were killed there in police firing. But both police action and work on the project resumed simultaneously in December last year. The police lathi-charged protesters when they opposed the setting up of the police post at the plant site on December 1. The police action was repeated on December 16, May 10, June 15 and June 22.

"The environmental clearance that UAIL obtained for the project expired in September 2000. The ongoing construction is illegal because they have not obtained fresh clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest," said Prafulla Samantara, president of the Orissa chapter of the Lok Shakti Abhiyan and one of the petitioners against the Vedanta Alumina project at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district. Bhagawat Prasad Rath, well-known social activist of Rayagada, echoes Samantara.

"The project should be scrapped. The arguments for the refinery are not based on facts since no proper cost-benefit analysis, including the environmental and social costs, has been carried out. We will fight till the end as it involves the question of livelihood of the tribal people and the environment," said Rath.

The four proposed alumina refineries in this region would see the digging up of about 10 mountain plateaus to extract bauxite. Besides its obvious industrial use, the bauxite reserves in this Scheduled-V area are a source of several perennial streams that feed the rivers in this zone. The tribal people fear that indiscriminate mining would lead to the drying up and pollution of the streams.

The UAIL's Vedanta Alumina project is nearing completion but the company is not sure that it will be able to extract bauxite from the nearby Niyamgiri hills as three petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court against allowing bauxite mining at Niyamgiri, home to the Dongaria Konds, a primitive tribe. The Central Empowered Committee of the apex court has submitted a report stating that various clearances to the company were given in haste and mining in Niyamgiri will have an adverse impact on the ecology of the area. Meanwhile, the authors of industrialisation are of the view that industrial development is the answer to the State's wrenching poverty. For them, issues such as tribal rights and the adverse impact on the environment can be put on the back burner.