GRASSROOTS TRIBAL DEMOCRACY AT THE CROSSROADS

A Study of the Implementation of The Panchayat (Extension To The Scheduled Areas) Act

1996 (PESA) in the State of Chhattisgarh

Contents

1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1

2. Methodology, Limitations and Structure of Study ..............................................................1

3. History ...................................................................................................................................2

3.1 The Haihays ......................................................................................................................3

3.2 The Colonial Onslaught .....................................................................................................4 3.3 Independence and Immediately After ................................................................................5

3.4 Tribal Revolt .....................................................................................................................7 3.5 Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha ...............................................................................................9

3.6 Formation of Chhattisgarh ............................................................................................... 11

4. Tribal Specific Socio-Economic Situation Analysis ........................................................... 12

5. PESA and the Wider Legal Framework............................................................................. 19

5.1 Indian Legal History ........................................................................................................ 20

5.2 Fifth Schedule ................................................................................................................. 22 5.3 Enactment of PESA ......................................................................................................... 23

5.4 The Samatha Judgment .................................................................................................... 27 5.5 PESA and Other Laws and Regulations ........................................................................... 29

6. Violation of PESA in Chhattisgarh..................................................................................... 30

6.1 Steel Plants ...................................................................................................................... 31 6.2 Power .............................................................................................................................. 39

6.3 Rivers and Dams ............................................................................................................. 42 6.4 Mining ............................................................................................................................ 45

6.5 Forests ............................................................................................................................. 48 6.6 Biofuels ........................................................................................................................... 49

6.7 Non-Nationalised Non-Timber Forest Produce and Trader-Moneylenders ....................... 50 6.8 Maoist Movement and Salwa Judum ............................................................................... 51

7. Remedial Action .................................................................................................................. 53

7.1. Environment Protection Act ........................................................................................... 53

7.2 Rehabilitation and Resettlement ...................................................................................... 58 7.3 National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme .............................................................. 68

8. Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 69

9. References ............................................................................................................................ 70

10. Glossary and Abbreviations .............................................................................................. 73

1

GRASSROOTS TRIBAL DEMOCRACY AT THE CROSSROADS

A Study of the Implementation of The Panchayat (Extension To The Scheduled Areas) Act

1996 (PESA) in the State of Chhattisgarh

1. Introduction

Chhattisgarh is ideally suited for the implementation of the Panchayat (Extension to the

Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 known more popularly by its acronym PESA which provides for the

control of natural resources and development by the tribal gram sabha in tribal areas notified

under Schedule V of the Indian Constitution. There had been a long pre-medieval domination of

the area by tribals and even throughout the medieval period they remained largely independent in

the northern and southern areas of the state. The whole of the present Chhattisgarh state was till

the first millennium of the Christian era under the control of various tribes. The last southern

tract of the Chhotanagpur Plateau and the Maikal and Korea hills constituting the northern hilly

portion of present day Chhattisgarh was dominated by the Oraons, the Pendra platueau and the

North Chhattisgarh plains in the middle were populated mostly by the Baigas and Korwas and

the South Chhattisgarh plains and the Bastar Plateau were peopled by the various subtribes of the

Gonds. The Gonds were in fact the largest tribal group stretching from the Mahakoshal region of

the current Madhya Pradesh down to Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. There was a flourishing

Gond kingdom based in Ratanpur in Bilaspur district which was built on a low material base of

subsistence agriculture or hunting and gathering by most of the tribals (Danda 1977).

The most important aspect of this kingdom was its sustainable communitarian use of

natural resources for a biologically diversified agricultural production. This was made possible

by a decentralised village based governance system which owed only minimal allegiance to the

kingdom in Ratanpur. Consequently the tribals later militantly revolted against the destruction of

this communitarian system and their resultant social, economic and political marginalisation due

to the process of modernisation introduced by the British and carried on by the independent

Indian state. Even today thei tribals' protests are continuing in various forms. However, the sad

reality is that at present PESA is being violated at will by both the administration and the

industrialists desirous of setting up various projects to exploit the rich natural resources in the

tribal areas of the state because despite protests there is not enough overall awareness and

resistance among the once powerful tribals to remedy this sorry situation.

2. Methodology, Limitations and Structure of Study

The present study is a combination of primary and secondary research aimed at

documenting the tragedy of tribal disempowerment that has unfolded in the state so as to be able

to chart out a course of remedial action for the future. The research programme was as follows -

1. Initially the choice had been to use a random sampling frame for selecting the panchayats

to study through primary data collection. However, initial scoping surveys revealed that

the awareness of PESA is extremely low generally throughout the state and it is only in

areas where a few mass organisations or politically inclined NGOs are active that there is

any effort to get the Act implemented. Consequently given the limited scope of the study

instead of a rigorous sampling approach requiring an extensive survey spanning a large

number of panchayats to get a few that had actually engaged in the implementation of

PESA, a few specifically selected case studies have been undertaken.

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2. The main methodology of primary data collection has been that of focus group

discussions with villagers and activists in the hotspots where there have been mass

protests in the past or there are campaigns still going on against the non-implementation

of PESA. An initial scoping survey was done in the first week of February 2009. This

was followed by two more detailed surveys conducted later. The first was from 15th to

29th March 2009 in the districts of Dantewara, Bastar, Kanker, Raipur, Mahasamund,

Dhamtari, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Kabirdham, Bilaspur, Korba and Janjgir. The second visit

was from 20th to 28th April 2009 in the districts of Koria, Sarguja, Jashpur and Raigarh

followed by informal discussions with various persons regarding the issues arising from

the case studies. A total of twentyone focus group discussions spread over various

locations in the sixteen districts of Chhattisgarh were conducted in these two detailed

survey trips.

3. Secondary research has been conducted on government documents, newspaper reports,

laws and regulations, court judgments and other studies and books relevant to the subject.

4. The situation prevailing in Chhattisgarh is very difficult due to the ongoing civil war

between the State forces and the Naxalites. Consequently it was not possible to get any of

the government functionaries from the lower to the higher levels to speak on record about

the implementation or otherwise of PESA.

The limitation of this study thus is that it only details the more glaring violations of PESA

and related statutes in Chhattisgarh based on selected case studies and presents the point of view

of those affected by the non-implementation of PESA without the views of the government and

administration regarding these issues. So this is more of a mapping exercise and fact finding

report than a rigorous academic study of PESA in Chhattisgarh.

The study begins by tracing the history of the region from the first millennium of the

Christian era when the region first came under the rule of non-tribals to the present time. The

tribal rulers of the region before this being non-literate there are no historical records available

regarding their rule and the only evidence of their rule are the ruins of a seven storey palace and

its associated buildings in Ratanpur. The socio-economic situational analysis of the state is

presented next. This is followed by an analysis of the legal framework and the inter-relations

between PESA and various other statutes as also the case law that has emerged from the

judgments delivered in numerous important litigations in the High Courts and Supreme Court.

After this the specific detailed primary case studies of the more glaring violations of PESA,

Environment Protection Act and the Rehabilitation Policy in Chhattisgarh which have

jeopardised the livelihoods of the tribals are presented. The issue of Maoist violence and the

counter violence of the state is also discussed in this context. Finally, a roadmap for

implementation of PESA and revival of tribal autonomy is chalked out on the basis of the facts

and analysis arising from the study.

3. History

Chhattisgarh or "Chatar Raj" as it is popularly called, was the region of the upper

Mahanadi river valley constituted by the present districts of Rajnandgaon, Kabirdham, Durg,

Raipur, Mahasamund, Bilaspur and Janjgir. The northern and southern parts of Chhattisgarh

remained predominantly under tribal rule till the British times. Thus the history of Chhattisgarh

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is mainly that of the Chatar Raj till the advent of the British who integrated all the areas of the

present Chhattisgarh into the Central Provinces and Berar in the nineteenth century.

3.1 The Haihays

The Chatar Raj region came under the rule of one branch of the Kalchuri dynasty that

came to power in the Mahakoshal region of the present Madhya Pradesh about the ninth century

of the Christian era. The Kalchuris overcame the Gond kings at Ratanpur and took control of the

rich and fertile Mahanadi basin driving the Gonds towards the southern hilly region. Along with

the Kalchuris a non-tribal population came into the Mahanadi basin from the Mahakoshal region

and took control over its fertile agricultural lands. Thereafter this region was ruled continuously

for about eight centuries from roughly 1000 A.D. to 1757 A.D. by a single dynasty which

renamed itself as the Haihays. The Haihays ruled from the old Gond capital of Ratanpur. The

Haihays organised their rule around thirty six garhs or forts and hence the name of the region

from chhattis in Hindi meaning thirty six. Each garh was the centre of administration for a

Chourasi or unit of eighty-four villages. These Chourasis in turn were made up of seven Barwahs

or units of twelve villages. Each village had as its head a Gountiya who was responsible for

revenue collection and general administration. The Gountiya's powers, however, were not

absolute being circumscribed by the decisions of the Gram Panchayat or village council (Shukla

1988). Thus the active role of the village council which is an integral part of tribal societies

continued in the Haihay rule also.

The Haihays were themselves not the conquering type of rulers and were not threatened

by conquest by others either. So their military expenses were minimal. They were also not

extravagant builders of palaces, monuments and temples like the Rajputs and Mughals.

Consequently revenue extracted from farmers was comparatively low. Thus despite being at the

lowest rung of a feudal system the village panchayats had considerable autonomy and could even

regulate the trade within their jurisdiction. This naturally gave the farmers a lot of incentives to

develop a prosperous farming system. The long period of peaceful rule devoid of any wars led to

the development of a fairly egalitarian system that was at the same time productive and

ecologically sustainable.

Traditionally this region, even more than the rest of India, used to thrive in its villages.

Even today the first thing that is bound to strike the eye of an outsider to a village in

Chhattisgarh is the large number of tanks that dot the landscape. Sometimes numbering upto as

many as a hundred and forty-seven, as in the village of Bastar which was the seat of the

princedom of the same name, these tanks used to form the lynchpin of a socio-economic system

that was amazingly sustainable in both economical and ecological terms. These tanks fulfilled

the varied needs for water of the village ranging from drinking and washing to irrigation. The

main purpose of course was the protective irrigation of the staple paddy crop of which more than

seventeen thousand varieties used to be grown resulting in Chhattisgarh being referred to as a

"Dhan Ka Katora" or a bowl of rice (Verma 2002).

These tanks and the agricultural system based on them were maintained through an

elaborate communitarian culture. The celebration of the Agti festival in April every year used to

mark the community expression of this sound ecological sense distilled from centuries of

interaction with Nature. With the start of the festival the whole village would turn out regularly

everyday till all the tanks were cleaned up and deepened. Yet another ritual of the festival was

the exchange of seeds. All the farmers would pool their seeds in a common place. Then seeds of

4

different varieties would be exchanged. Farmers from other villages too could come and

exchange seeds. This exchange of seeds supplemented the continous practice of selection and

conservation carried out in the field. In this way a large genetic diversity was maintained and

some part of the harvest would always survive come flood or drought. This community

awareness owed its existence to the unique medieval history of Chhattisgarh.

3.2 The Colonial Onslaught

The demise of this system and the gradual eclipse of rural Chhattisgarh began with the

downfall of the Haihays. The Marathas who annexed the region in 1757 sounded the first

discordant note by substantially hiking the taxes. They ruled from Nagpur in the nearby

Vidarbha region and so took away all the revenue without spending anything on the region apart

from the bare minimum necessary for administration. The British colonialists conquered this

region by defeating the Mararthas in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and promptly

began implementing their oppressive system of land revenue maximisation practised by them all

over India. They also extended their rule to the tribal regions to the north bordering the

Chhotanagpur plateau and to the south over the Bastar plateau. The British instituted a land

revenue system in which Malguzars, the Chhattisgarhi equivalent of the Zamindars, acted as

agents who had to pay a fixed tax to the British with freedom to collect as much as they wished

from the tenants under them (Grant 1870).

This Malguzari system of land revenue collection effectively circumscribed the

independence of the small farmer and also struck at the roots of the vibrant community

partnership of the earlier era. Most of these Malguzars were non-cultivating upper castes brought

in by the British from north and central India who had no interest in the development of

sustainable farming practices whatsoever. They were concerned only with the collection of

revenue as were the British. Moreover a new trade route was opened up to link the region with

the imperial capital in Calcutta and so hasten the exploitation of the rich natural resources of the

region. In the new dispensation traders and moneylenders prospered at the expense of farmers.

The traders of Raipur the present capital city financially supported the British in their fight to

suppress the first war of Indian independence in 1857 while the malguzar class provided it with

moral and logistical support (Ghosh 1985).

The British consistently transported non-tribal people into the hilly forested areas

populated by the tribals from the nearest plains areas to increase the land under settled

agriculture and buttress their earnings from land revenue. Land revenue being the most important

source of funding for the British administrative and military set up this activity of settling non-

tribals in tribal areas was a major policy in the early colonial period giving rise to many battles.

The Gond tribals of these heavily forested areas of the state, were averse to settled cultivation

and vehemently opposed this intrusion and there were many fierce battles leading to their

massacre right from the late 18th century mostly in the Bastar region. The most well-organised

struggle was that of the Gonds of Bastar under the leadership of Gundadhur called the Bhoomkal

rebellion of 1910 (Shukla 1985). This was a systematically organised uprising in which much

pre-planning was done to cut communications by wire and road and the British were surrounded

and forced to the point of surrender. However, they survived by treachery on the part of some of

the Gonds and later the rebellion was ruthlessly put down. This Malguzari system was gradually

extended to the Bastar region also. The whole region was amalgamated with the present

5

Vidarbha area of Maharashtra and Mahakoshal and Bundelkhand regions of Madhya Pradesh and

named Central Provinces and Berar by the British.

Thus, the political centre of Chhattisgarh located in the plains area around Raipur and

Bilaspur is numerically dominated by the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and some areas have a

strong Scheduled Caste (SC) concentration. There are still some tribal people in this area but

they are mostly Hinduised and dont even speak their own tribal language. The dominant tribal

regions of Chhattisgarh are on its hilly periphery to the north and south -

1. Oraon, Korwa, Kol, Kamar, Baiga, Bhaina, Pandos and Panika tribes in the northern

hilly regions where a considerable number have converted to Christianity from the

19th century onwards.

2. Maria, Muria, Halba, Dorla, Bhattra, Gond, Sawara and Bhunjia tribes reside in the

southern hilly area mainly in the undivided Bastar region.

The political and economic elite in Chhattisgarh s are mostly upper castes who had

originally come from North India. The political rise of Ravi Shankar Shukla, a Brahmin lawyer

from Sagar in the Bundelkhand region, as a collaborator of the British and the support he

received from traders and princely rulers clearly underlines the marginalisation of the tribals in

the region in the colonial era (Baker 1979).

3.3 Independence and Immediately After

Ravi Shankar Shukla was the first Chief Minister of the Central Provinces region after

independence till his death in 1956. He was followed by D.P. Mishra another north Indian settled

in the Mahakoshal region as the first chief minister of the reorganised Madhya Pradesh in 1956.

Ravi Shankar's son Shyama Charan Shukla was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh from

1969 to 1972, 1975 to 1978 and 1989 to 1990. The descendants of such non-tribal migrants into

Chhattisgarh continue to hog political power in the state at present.

Not surprisingly given this skewing of political power towards a migrant upper caste

elite, the coming of independence in 1947 only aggravated the condition of the poor. The formal

abolition of the Malguzari system was not accompanied by any far-reaching land reforms on the

ground. The former Malguzars (the most prominent among these becoming the new rulers), used

a variety of stratagems to retain control of most of the land. In the nineteen sixties the green

revolution was set rolling with the introduction of high-yielding varieties of rice and heavily

irrigated, chemical fertilizer and pesticide based farming. A number of large and medium sized

dams were built to improve irrigation facilities to meet the higher demand for water. Within a

few years a primarily self-sustaining agricultural system was changed into one producing for the

national and international markets with external inputs. Traders and rice millers reaped the

benefits. The most infamous being the Jain brothers who made their millions initially by

exporting rice but who later diversified into smuggling of foreign exchange and laundering of

black money. They were subsequently implicated in a criminal case for having laundered black

money for most of the important leaders of the major political parties in the country in a big

scandal that shook the political firmament in the nineteen nineties, which like most such cases

eventually came to nought for lack of sufficient evidence (Mahalingam 1998)

Similar to the situation in the rest of India and especially in the state of Punjab (Shiva

1991), the green revolution in Chhattisgarh too has only served to impoverish the small farmer in

the long run. Today with decreasing yields, proneness to pest attacks and increasing costs of

6

inputs like chemical fertilizers, electricity and pesticides, it has become an albatross around his

neck leading to a virtual epidemic of suicides by farmers laden with debt. A maverick

agricultural scientist Dr R.H. Riccharia referred to his own field research to point out that there

were indigenous rice varieties in Chhattisgarh, which were far higher yielding and pest resistant

than the foreign hybrids that were being introduced (Richharia and Govindaswamy 1990).

However, his voice was a lonely and poor one, which got easily drowned out in the cacophony

and heavy international funding in support of the green revolution. The introduction of the profit

motive among farmers and the monetisation of the rural economy has been a blow to the

community spirit and the traditional consensus based Gram Panchayats have lost their

cohesiveness. The practices of voluntary labour to maintain the village tanks and the exchange of

indigenous seeds during the Agti festival have gradually withered away leading to a decay of the

tanks and a serious erosion of genetic diversity.

Nothing is more symbolic of this all round decay than the neglected condition of the once

thriving village tanks which used to be the mainstay of the rural economy in yesteryears. Many

tanks have dried up. The few that remain have as a result been subjected to heavier pressure than

is healthy for them. Often humans and animals bathe in the same tank. Pesticide and fertilizer

residues as well as human and animal wastes make their way into the tanks. Most deplorable,

however, is the decrease in the protective irrigation potential of the tanks, which has meant that

in years of less than normal rainfall, crops fail and drought results. The focus group discussion

held in Jepra village in Kanker district on 18th March 2009 revolved around the decay of the

many tanks in the village. Anandi Ram Khaperde one of the village elders and an enterprising

farmer related that in his childhood and youth people would go in teams during the summer from

one tank to another cleaning them of their silt while singing songs all the time. It used to be a

festival atmosphere that they looked forward to.

Industrial development only added to the woes of the bucolic Chhattisgarhis. It all started

with the setting up of the Bhilai Steel Plant by the government in the nineteen fifties (Srinivasan

1984). This was soon followed by various other projects like the aluminium extraction plant at

Korba (Dhagamvar, De and Verma 2003), thermal power stations, cement plants and the mining

on a massive scale of iron ore, bauxite, coal and limestone to provide the raw materials. All this

involved displacement of rural people, mainly tribals, without commensurate increase in

employment. These industrial plants and mines required for their operation and management

relatively high skilled people who had to be brought in from outside. The local Chhattisgarhis,

especially the tribals, mostly got low paid casual employment or were left out totally from this

process. Apart from these basic industries there was little downstream industrialisation to utilise

their products. Instead the steel, aluminium, coal, cement and power were transported to Bhopal,

Indore, Kolkata and Mumbai for further processing and building. The iron-ore mined from

Bailadila in south Bastar was not even made into steel but was shipped raw to Japan without

processing.

A stunted industrial growth has taken place without any significant forward and

backward linkages within the region that could create employment opportunities for a large

number of people. In recent times sponge iron plants which use a technology of steel making that

has become obsolete the world over has greatly increased the problems of the people. The

ecological costs of such a fast and unplanned industrialization are being felt throughout the state

as will be described later. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a great proponent of planned

industrial development. While inaugurating the first chemical fertilizer plant of the country in

7

1954 in Sindri in Bihar he had hailed it as being a temple of modern India and had gone on to say

that India needed many more such temples (Nehru 1958). The first and most important such

modern temple in Chhattisgarh was the Bhilai Steel Plant. To meet the water requirements of this

plant, which could not be met from local sources in Durg district anymore, another temple had to

be built - the Gangrel dam on the river Mahanadi in Dhamtari district.

The rural people in Chhattisgarh have found a way out of the havoc caused by lopsided

and destructive development by either resorting to making bidis (which are handmade cigarettes)

or migrating to other states in search of employment. So far and wide do they go in search of

employment that some Chhattisgarhi labourers had the misfortune of being killed by armed

separatists in the northern insurgency prone state of Kashmir in 1999. Bidis are made by rolling

tobacco inside leaves of the tendu tree and tying them with string. This is a widespread cottage

industry carried out through a system of outsourcing whereby bidi makers, mostly women, are

supplied with the tendu leaves, tobacco and string by contractors and get paid by piece rate for

the bidis they make. The tendu leaves are also collected during the summer season by the rural

poor on a piece rate basis. The bidi makers are totally at the mercy of the agents who act as

middlemen on behalf of the bidi factory and supply the raw materials to them, collect the

finished bidis and make the payment. Despite this the reality is that after all this exploitation the

money earned from making bidis was till recently much higher than the daily wages that could

be earned as agricultural labourers (Rahul 1999). Matters have changed somewhat now with the

implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme despite various problems

as will be discussed later in more detail.

3.4 Tribal Revolt

The tribals of Bastar had been having a raw time ever since the suppression of the

Bhoomkal rebellion earlier in 1910 and this increased with the vastly greater influx of non-tribals

into the region for various developmental activities. This influx was aggravated by the

resettlement of Bengali refugees from the erstwhile East Pakistan after independence in the

Dandakaranya region of Bastar. Apart from this the initiation of the iron-ore mining project in

Bailadila too drew in large numbers of non-tribals. Thus it was not surprising that the tribals

began protesting soon after independence. However, the disaffection of the tribals with these

developments found a rather traditional non-tribal leadership for its expression. The king of

Bastar, Prabir Chandra Bhanjdeo, was an eccentric non-tribal person who was opposed to the

new order that came into force after independence in which the princes were deprived of their

earlier powers and taking advantage of the anger of the tribals he began exhorting his erstwhile

tribal subjects to disobey the new government. He would hold a daily durbar or audience in his

palace and distribute currency notes of various denominations to the tribals who gathered there.

Apart from this he used his considerable influence as the head priest of the Danteshwari temple

whose Goddess Kali had a big hold over the tribal population to propitiate the Goddess in their

favour in times of agricultural crises through "yagnas" or fire sacrifices. He became extremely

popular as a result. Naturally this brought him into disfavour with the leaders of the new

government and their colonial minded bureaucrats who wanted to establish their own legitimacy

in the minds of the tribals (Sundar 1999).

The Madhya Pradesh Government deprived him of his estate in 1953 for his anti-

government activities with the excuse that he would whittle it away through debauchery and

charity. This prompted Bhanjdeo to increase his efforts at channelising the discontent of the

8

tribals against the state through the formation of a mass organisation in 1955 - Adivasi Kisan

Mazdoor Sangh. Initially the Congress party made a compromise and decided to support him and

his supporters for election as MLAs in 1957 and they won overwhelmingly. However, since even

after this his estate was not restored to him, he resigned and continued with his organisation of

the tribals against the state now under the name Adivasi Seva Dal. Disregarding warnings from

the government he set up a parallel administration right down to the village level which

campaigned against the economic and political power of the non-tribal people who had come

from outside and dominated the Congress party, the higher echelons of the bureaucracy and trade

and commerce. The year 1960 saw an increase in activities of the Adivasi Seva Dal in the form

of forcible take over of the land of non-adivasis and also of government land. In a bid to strike

some fear into the tribals the government brought in reinforcements of special armed police and

threatened Bhanjdeo with de-recognition as ex-ruler and so also the loss of the Privy Purse that

he was being given annually by the state for having acceded to the Indian Union at the time of

independence. This only aggravated the situation and Bhanjdeo went to meet the Home Minister

in Delhi and warn him that state violence against them and his de-recognition would leave the

tribals of Bastar in turn with no alternative but to de-recognise the Madhya Pradesh Government.

The King was arrested on the way while returning to Bastar from this meeting in

February 1961 under preventive detention provisions and sent to jail. Immediately the Adivasi

Seva Dal launched an agitation for his release and began chasing traders away from the weekly

markets leading to confrontation with the police. On March 31st 1961 there was a major

confrontation in the market village of Lohandiguda in which thirteen people were killed in

unwarranted police firing and scores of others arrested and indicted for charges of armed rioting

and attempt to murder. The Additional Sessions Judge of Jagdalpur later dismissed the case

against those arrested concluding that there was no cause for the wanton firing resorted to by the

police. Even though the state went on appealing perversely against it the High and Supreme

Courts too upheld the lower court's decision thus putting their seal on the culpability of the

administration. The Lohandiguda incident was to set the ball rolling for the final tragic act of

rebellion of the tribals of Bastar in the nineteen sixties before they began to mobilise again two

decades later under the leadership of the Naxalites (Sundar op cit).

Bhanjdeo was released from jail in April in 1961 and was given a rousing reception on

his arrival in Jagdalpur. Thereafter he became even more strident in his demand for justice for

the tribals, especially for action to be taken against the officials responsible for the Lohandiguda

massacre. In the 1962 general elections six members of his organisation were elected as MLAs

and one as the only MP from Bastar completely routing the Congress party. This was the time

when the whole country was going through a food crisis due to successive failure of monsoons

and in Bastar too the price of rice the staple had begun to increase. Thus the tribals led by

Bhanjdeo began agitating for provision of rice at subsidised prices in sufficient quantity and this

intensified as the situation deteriorated from year to year. The Central Government at that time

had to import grains to tide over the crisis, which had assumed nationwide proportions.

However, since the distribution of these food grains was a time consuming process and a

backward and huge state like Madhya Pradesh faced severe logistical problems in early 1966, the

State Government imposed a levy of rice on the cultivators with the intention of trying to procure

as much as possible at the local level within the districts and obviate the need for allotments from

the Central Government, which were hard to come by.

9

This was rightly felt to be unjust by the tribals of Bastar who were anyway in a deficit

situation. A massive movement started for the repeal of this levy and Bhanjdeo himself launched

into a prolonged fast in February 1966. In the villages and markets, people refused to give the

levy and fought with the police to prevent this procurement. A remarkable fact about this

struggle was the tremendous participation of women in the mass actions to prevent the

procurement of the levy. There were innumerable rallies and demonstrations throughout the

district against this unfair order. The government instead of bowing to the legitimate demands of

the people brought in additional police forces with the intent of crushing the agitation and so set

up the scene for the tragic end to a militant mass movement of the tribals of Bastar. On March

25th 1966 a massive rally was planned in Jagdalpur and the people began collecting on the palace

grounds armed with bows and arrows disregarding the prohibitory orders against public

assembly that had been clamped by the administration. The inevitable skirmish, given the

tinderbox situation, started between the adivasis and the police in the afternoon and as had

happened before in the Lohandiguda incident it ended with the massacre of twelve people

including Bhanjdeo in police firing.

3.5 Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha

The other important tribal movement of note against the depredations of misgovernance

in the post independence era is that of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM). The Morcha had

its beginnings in the fight against some more unholy acts done to set up the first modern temple

of Chhattisgarh. It started as a trade union, Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh in 1977 in the

struggles of tribal contract workers at the captive iron-ore mines of the Bhilai Steel Plant at Dalli

in Durg district demanding better working conditions and wages. The plant management, instead

of employing regular workers and paying them decent wages had adopted the abhorrent practice

of hiring labourers through contractors at a cheap rate. A decade long struggle was waged from

the mid nineteen seventies till the mid nineteen eighties during which many workers laid down

their lives in police firing and attacks by goons of labour contractors while taking part in strikes.

Finally the workers got their rights acknowledged by the Bhilai Steel Plant management.

The unique feature of this struggle was that it broke out of the narrow confines of

standard trade unionism and encompassed the whole lives of its members. Campaigns were

carried out against the two most debilitating problems that beset poor labourers in India -

alcoholism and debt bondage to usurious moneylenders. Women were mobilised both to stop the

brewing and selling of liquor and to form micro-credit groups so as to alleviate these problems.

They also began addressing the problems of patriarchal oppression. A hospital was set up with

contributions from the members that apart from providing treatment also developed a community

health programme to increase health awareness. On the cultural front, research was conducted to

unearth instances of people's struggles in the history of Chhattisgarh that had been glossed over

by the mainstream historians. New literature in the form of songs and plays was created and

disseminated through repertory troupes to project a positive alternate image of Chhattisgarh that

could stand up to the modern urban culture being continually propagated through the mainstream

media. The Morcha inspired by its leader Shankar Guha Niyogi began to fan out among the

nearby villages and also the ancillary industrial units in and around Bhilai from the late nineteen

eighties.

The Morcha was formed in 1982 when the prevailing forms of development and

governance were pinpointed as the root causes of all the ills of the people of Chhattisgarh. Not

10

only did these bypass the livelihood interests of the majority but was also destructive of the

environment. The industrial area in Bhilai was marked as the local source of most of this mal-

development. Thus, it was realised that any movement for thoroughgoing change in the

Chhattisgarh region could not succeed without involving the labouring masses there. A four-

pronged strategy was worked out. The thrust in the industrial regions would have to be to try and

get labour and environmental laws implemented. In the villages the stress would have to be on

reviving the traditional community spirit and the environment friendly agricultural activities that

went with it. Simultaneously steps would have to be taken to get a better deal for farmers in the

agricultural input and product markets where traders were invariably cheating them. The third

front would have to be against the corrupt and repressive bureaucracy which had been inherited

from the British and which was totally insensitive to the needs of the people. Finally, an

ideological and cultural onslaught would have to be launched against modern industrial and

agricultural development by involving the intelligentsia. An alternative vision of a free

Chhattisgarh would have to be formulated that was radically different from that of the political

and economic elite. This was extremely important, as the ideology of modern development had

so hegemonised the masses that it was hard to initiate mass action to challenge it. The struggles

conducted by the CMM had served to strengthen their basic understanding that just the creation

of a separate state of Chhattisgarh without a radical change in the form of development and

governance was not going to bring about an improvement in the lives of most of the people.

The Morcha had consequently intensified its participation in the politics of the village

Panchayats so as to strike at centralisation from below. These Panchayats have lost their

traditional character and have become a microcosm of the larger political arena that is beset by

corruption and act as nurseries for the breeding of cadres for the mainstream political parties.

The Morcha had begun a process of reversing this trend by reinvigorating the traditional

consensus based Panchayat as a preliminary stage in its battle against the present over-

centralised system. Kautilya, the famous political analyst and statesman of ancient India, had

advised Chandragupta, the first great all Indian emperor who set up the Maurya dynasty, who

was despondent after having been defeated in battle by the powerful king Nanda early on in his

career, that it was foolish to plunge one's hand into the centre of a bowl of hot rice and that he

should instead pick the cooler grains on the side first (Sharmasastry 1924). The Morcha had

reaped rich dividends as a consequence of this sage strategy as its adivasi leader Janaklal Thakur

had been able to win the Dondi-Lohara assembly seat of the Madhya Pradesh Legislature in

1985. The CMM was unique in that it combined "sangharsh" (economic and political struggles)

with "nirman" (developmental and cultural renewal activities) functioning democratically under

a collective leadership which had a clear political vision of an alternative social set up and the

means to achieve it (Sadgopal and Namra 1993).

However, overall due to a lack of unity and awareness among the deprived classes no

sustained articulated movement was built up for the creation of a separate Chhattisgarh along the

lines being pursued by the CMM. Instead it was the non-tribal political elites which put forward

the idea of a separate Chhattisgarh that would benefit them further through the exploitation of

the economic potential of the region, one of the richest in the country in terms of natural

resources, in the changed scenario arising from liberalisation where state governments could

interact directly with national and international capital for the industrial development of the state.

11

3.6 Formation of Chhattisgarh

When the Parliament was debating the bill for the formation of the states of Jharkhand

and Chhattisgarh there was some mention of the creation of a larger tribal state comprising more

of the tribal areas in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Specifically, the inclusion of the districts of Shahdol, Sidhi, Mandla, Dindori and Umaria in

Madhya Pradesh was demanded so as to give a more pronounced tribal character to the state of

Chhattisgarh. However, eventually the delimitation was carried out taking into consideration

only the areas where the Chhattisgarhi language is spoken. Thus, in the final analysis the tribal

populace of Chhattisgarh are promoted more as a tourist label for their exotic lifestyles rather

than as an expression of the prominence of ST communities in the state either numerically or

politically. Instead it is the rich natural resources of the state that mostly are to be found in the

tribal dominated areas that are offered up to potential investors at rock bottom prices as will be

described in detail later.

The Scheduled Tribes (ST) constitute 31.8% of the population of the state whereas the

OBCs constitute 50.4% and the SCs 12%. The new State has 34 seats reserved for Scheduled

Tribes of a total of 90 assembly constituencies. Due to the rivalry between the Upper Caste

political elite of the Congress party at the time of formation of Chhattisgarh in 2000 a tribal, Shri

Ajit Jogi, was made the Chief Minister of the new state. However, after the first election in 2003

with the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the formal balance of power shifted back to

the upper caste elite. In the newly elected government in 2008 also Thakurs, Baniyas and

Brahmins dominate. Even though 70% of the BJP MLAs come from tribal seats, their

representation in the ministry is only 20%. Another interesting phenomenon arising from the

lopsided development that has taken place is that in the major urban areas of the state, the

proportion of STs is extremly low as given in Table 1 below. Thus even the few of the tribal elite

that do make it to the Vidhan Sabha or become part of the administration due to the provision for

reservations are hugely outnumbered in the economic and political centres which lessens their

commitment to the development of their brethren.

Table 1 : ST Population in Urban Areas of Chhattisgarh

District TOTAL ST % ST

Surguja 137181 23025 16.78% Bastar 130021 23972 18.44% Raipur 917618 38035 4.14% Bilaspur 486694 31007 6.37% Raigarh 169456 19253 11.36%

Rajnandgaon 231647 15637 6.75% Durg 1072309 64035 5.97%

Source: Census of India 2001.

This brief review of the history of Chhattisgarh clearly shows how the tribal populace has

been systematically marginalised since the British times in pursuit of modern development and

how their protests have been suppressed. This is the prevailing anti-tribal ambience of

governance and development in which the non-implementation of PESA and the current

struggles for tribal self rule have to be understood.

12

4. Tribal Specific Socio-Economic Situation Analysis

Chhattisgarh is situated between 21°16′N and 21.27°N Latitude and 81°36′E and 81.60°E

Longitude covering an area of 135133 square kilometers of which as much as 81861 square

kilometers (60.58%) is notified as scheduled area under the Fifth Schedule of the constitution.

The tribals constitute 31.8 % of the total population of which 94.7% residing in rural and mostly

forested areas. The tribal literacy rate is 52.1% as compared to 64.7% for the whole population.

The population density is low at 134 per square kilometer. The tribal population is mainly

dependent on agriculture, animal husbandry and forest produce while there are some Primitive

Tribal Groups (PTG) like the Pahari Korwas who are still subsisting through hunting and

gathering. The Gonds constitute 55.3% of the total ST population. There are sixteen districts of

which seven are totally in the scheduled areas. The total number of tribal development blocks

covered under the Tribal Sub Plan are 85. The state is also the richest in India in terms of mineral

resources as shown in the Table 2 below -

Table 2: Minerals in Chhattisgarh 2005-06 Sl

No.

Mineral Reserves (Million

Tonnes)

Production

(Tonnes)

Proportion of National

Production (%)

Ranking

1 Coal 35375 44723000 14.91 2

2 Iron Ore 2336 18490000 25.17 1

3 Bauxite 148 438095 6.39 6

4 Tin Ore 28894 22812 100.0 1

5 Limestone 75658 12106000 9.47 5

6 Dolomite 4386 673111 23.41 2

7 Quartzite 2707 17522 28.57 2

Source: Directorate of Geology and Mining, Chhattisgarh, 2006.

These rich mineral resources and especially the important ones like iron-ore, bauxite, coal

and limestone are mostly concentrated in the scheduled areas where the tribals reside as shown in

Table 3 below in which the fully scheduled area districts are shaded in green and the partially

scheduled area districts are shaded in blue.

Table 3: Districtwise Availability of Minerals in Chhattisgarh

District Minerals

Kanker iron ore, bauxite and granite

Korba bauxite and coal

Korea coal, fireclay

Dantewada tin ore, iron ore, corundum

Bastar limestone, dolomite, quartzite, iron ore and bauxite

Jashpur bauxite, gold and beryl

Sarguja bauxite and coal

Raipur limestone, diamond, alexandrite, garnet, dolomite, granite, gold

Durg limestone, iron ore, dolomite, quartzite

Bilaspur limestone, dolomite

Mahasamund gold and quartzite

Rajnandgaon limestone, iron ore, fluorite, quartz, granite

Kabirdham bauxite, Limestone

13

District Minerals

Janjgir limestone, dolomite

Raigarh limestone, quartzite and coal

Dhamtari granite and minor minerals

Source: Chhattisgarh Human Development Report 2005

Thus, right from the time of independence when industrial development was given a

boost in the region, the tribals have faced displacement because of the mining of these minerals

and the setting up of industrial plants to process and add value to them. Due to lack of education

and unfamiliarity with the modern industrial system the tribals mostly could not get jobs in these

new industries. A comprehensive study of tribal displacement carried out by a consortium of

social development and research agencies (Action Aid, Indian Social Institute and Laya 2008) in

the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand has come up with the a

disconcerting picture of injustice to tribals in the Scheduled Areas of these states which are all

rich in minerals and have seen a lot of development. The findings of the study with regard to

Chhattisgarh are as follows -

1. The estimated number of displaced and project affected persons in Chhattisgarh from

development projects upto 2007 were 8,58,093 of which 93.3 % were STs.

2. The main source of information regarding impending displacement was village gossip

(43%) while the least number of persons (3%) were informed by official notification

which is mandatory in such cases.

3. Only 2% of the affected people were aware of the criteria for awarding compensation

which was always in cash and inadequate in amount leading to formal or informal

complaints in 72% of the cases.

4. The costs of resettlement were mostly borne by the affected persons with costs being

borne by the state or project authorities only in 6% of the cases.

5. Consequently there have been a spate of protests against the land acquisition process of

which the most were armed protests (63%) and only a few were formal legal protests

(2%) as can well be imagined given that those displaced were overwhelmingly tribal.

The northern and southern parts are hilly and have plateaus while the central portion is the

richly alluvial Mahanadi basin which is a rice producing area and agriculturally very productive

as shown in Fig. 1 below. The normal annual rainfall is around 1300 mm. Consequently the state

is rich in water resources. Not only are there many streams and rivers with the Mahanadi being

the largest but also as mentioned earlier each village has many tanks that are used for both

domestic and irrigation purposes. The town of Ratanpur in Bilaspur district which used to be the

capital of both the Gond and Haihay rulers is unique in this respect. Ratanpur is situated at the

edge of the upper lower Mahanadi valley where it is bordered by the Churi Hills to the north. It

has as many as 256 tanks and these have been witness to more than a thousand years of history.

They were first constructed by the Gond kings who cleverly harvested the water that came

running down from the hills nearby to the valley. Such is the efficacy of this water harvesting

system that despite the year 2007-08 having been one that was heavily deficient in rainfall there

is no water shortage in this town which gets a lot of tourists due to its being a Hindu religious

centre of importance.

14

Fig. 1 : Physical Map of Chhattisgarh

As mentioned earlier the tribals are numerically concentrated in the northern and southern

hilly parts while the plains are dominated by upper and other backward castes. The region wise

distribution of the various tribes are given in Table 4 below.

Table 4: Regional Distribution of Scheduled Tribes in Chhattisgarh

Area Districts Major Tribes Primitive Tribes

Northern Region

Surguja, Korea, Jashpur, Raigarh

Kanwar, Oraon, Nagesia, Saunta, Saur, Sawar, Baiga, Agaria, Kol, Dhanwar, Biyar, Binjhwar, Manjhwar, Bharia, Bhaina, Majhi, Khairwar, Kharia and Gond Korwa

15

Area Districts Major Tribes Primitive Tribes

Central Region

Durg, Rajnandgaon, Kabirdham, Korba, Bilaspur, Mahasamund, Janjgir-Champa, Raipur, Dhamtari

Gond, Oraon, Kol, Binjhwar, Dhanwar, Kanwar, Halba, Pardhi, Bahelia, Bhunjia, Agariya, Kondh, Bhaina, Majhi, Manjhwar, Sonr, Saur Gadaba, Sawar, Saunta

Birhor, Baiga, Korwa, Kamar

Southern Region

Kanker, Bastar, Dantewada

Halba, Gadaba, Pardhi, Kamar, Bhattra, Dhurwa, Muria, Maria, Dandami Maria Gond, Raj Gond, Dorla, Hill Maria, Pardhan, Mudia

Bison Horn Maria

Source: Chhattisgarh Human Development Report 2005

The state is rich in forest resources with a recorded forest area of 59,772 sq kms

constituting 44.21% of the total area. The area under Very Dense Forest (VDF) is 1,540 sq. kms

and that under Moderate Dense Forest (MDF) is 37,440 sq. kms. The district wise distribution of

forests is given in Table 5 below. The fully scheduled area districts are as before shaded in green

while the partially scheduled area districts are shaded in blue. Clearly the tribal dominated

districts are also the areas where there is maximum area under forests as is also illustrated in the

forest cover map in Fig . 2 below.

Table 5: Districtwise Distribution of Forests in Chhattisgarh

District Reserved Forest (sq. kms)

Protected Forest (sq. kms)

Forests not under Forest Department (sq. kms)

Total (sq. kms)

Kanker 1583.97 733.55 1040.85 3358.37

Bastar 3359.35 2083.86 1669.19 7112.39

Dantewada 5179.79 3125.74 1711.77 10017.3

Surguja 2473.14 6181.83 0 8654.97

Korea 2001.15 1528.14 0 3529.29

Jashpur 1147.71 588.08 1016.5 2752.29

Korba 0 2834.97 1352.4 4187.37

Raipur 1908.55 1888.46 615.77 4412.78

Dhamtari 2056.32 69.22 0 2125.54

Mahasamund 756.92 322.4 423.65 1502.97

Durg 635.07 113.23 114.91 863.21

Rajnandgaon 943.17 1709.15 270.69 2923.01

Kabirdham 706.57 921.85 223.83 1852.25

Raigarh 1597.62 581 1064.4 3243.02

Janjgir 151.46 59.3 39.3 250.07

Bilaspur 1281.39 1295.33 410.85 2987.56

Total 25782.18 24036.11 9954.11 59772.39

Source: Chhattisgarh Forest Department.

An unique feature of Chhattisgarh is the existence of large tracts of forests on revenue

land under private management and in the undivided Bastar consisting of the present Kanker,

Bastar and Dantewada districts they constitute as much as 22% of the total forest area. This has

16

occurred because of the practice of the kings and zamindars in this area having allowed tribals to

keep forest land and the teak trees on it under their control, a practice that was regularised after

independence through the Madhya Pradesh Protection of Scheduled Tribes (Interest in Trees)Act

1956. These tree rights came to be known as "Malik Makbuja" and were a welfare provision in

the interests of the tribals. However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s administrative and forest

department officers in collusion with timber traders began duping the tribals and felling the trees

by offering the latter a pittance of the actual commercial value. This scam which came to be

known as the "Malik Makbuja" scandal is an example of the way in which the simplicity of the

tribals has been exploited by bureaucrats and traders to subvert the welfare provisions that have

been made for their benefit (Sharma 1998).

The state has three

national parks and ten

wildlife sanctuaries.

Initially only the Indrawati

National Park in South

Bastar was within the

Project Tiger but now two

more wildlife sanctuaries

are to be included. The

protected area constitutes

10.6% of the total forest

area and is another cause of

deprivation of the tribals as

the restrictions on their

usage and movement within

these protected areas is

even more than in the

reserved and protected

forest areas.

The forest areas also

coincide with much of the

mineral resources

especially the industrially

very important bauxite and

iron. Thus this creates a

two way conflict with

environmental protection

and tribal livelihoods which

is the main reason for the

non-implementation of

PESA in Chhattisgarh as

will become clear later.

Fig. 2 : Forest Cover Map of Chhattisgarh

17

The district map of Chhattisgarh showing all the sixteen districts is shown in Fig. 3 below.

Fig. 3: District Map of Chhattisgarh

18

The Chhattisgarh government has many programmes for the development of tribals

subsumed under the Tribal Subplan. However, these have not been able to bring about

substantial improvement in the condition of most of the tribals due to poor governance. Recently,

however, a pilot programme of tribal development has been launched with funding and technical

support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development which stresses on the

strengthening of community participation by leveraging the provisions of PESA to make the

Gram Sabha more powerful. This programme has targeted households in villages with tribal,

PTG and Scheduled Caste population of not less than 50% of the total population and where the

majority of the households live below the poverty line. The objective of the programme is to

develop and implement a replicable model that ensures household food security and improves

livelihood opportunities and overall quality of life of the tribal population based on the

sustainable and equitable use of natural resources. To achieve this, the programme -

i empowers tribal grassroots associations and users' groups, including women and

other marginal groups

ii promotes activities which generate sustainable increases in production and

productivity of land and water resources and

iii generates sources of income outside of agriculture, particularly for the landless.

The basic approach is to promote processes of awareness generation, legal literacy, social

analysis and mobilisation. The programme supports initiatives identified, planned and

implemented by beneficiaries and provides the required resources and support. The resources are

managed directly by the beneficiaries after appropriate training and capacity building. These are

supplied through NGOs with a proven experience in applying such approaches. The proposed

programme has three main components. Under the beneficiary empowerment and capacity

building component, the programme finances broad based awareness raising of tribal rights and

of gender and equity issues, legal and managerial strengthening, and technical training.

Similarly, under livelihood systems enhancement, the programme finances all production-related

activities as well as enabling measures, namely land and water management/ watershed

development, including community-based small infrastructures; production systems

improvement; rural micro-finance; and health and nutrition. Under the programme management

and implementation component, the programme finances salary and allowances for Programme

Implementation Unit staff at the district level, the relevant running costs for the Tribal

Development Society and a skeleton Programme Management Unit, a legal defence fund,

specialised and baseline studies, training for the staff and the development of training material,

exposure visits, study tours, and technical assistance, and the costs of capacity building of

facilitating NGOs and their contractual support services.

A gradual and phased approach is adopted to allow for the satisfactory empowerment of

Gram Sabhas and for building up grassroots institutions. Therefore, the programme has been

carried out in two phases - a pilot phase and a scaling up phase - with a reassessment and

evaluation at the end of the pilot phase and three years after commencement of the scaling up

phase. It is envisaged that the programme would be completed over a eight year period. The

funds planned for the activities to be undertaken by the communities is passed on either to

special purpose committees established under the programme, or to the Gram Sabha. At the

village level, the Gram Sabha is the basic unit for planning, co-ordinating and monitoring

programme activities. Since the programme’s activities is demand driven, a screening system has

been set up for screening of all requests for financing emanating from Gram Sabhas.

19

Thus there is an awareness in the administration regarding the need for the empowerment

of the tribal Gram Sabha however the above programme is being implemented only in a few

areas where there are no controversial conflicts regarding the use of natural resources leading to

the violation of PESA by the government to further land acquisition for the establishment of

mines, industries and protected forest areas. Consequently overall the condition of the tribals is

considerably worse as compared to that of the non-tribals as is clearly brought out in the district

wise human development indicators given in Table 6 below where as before the fully scheduled

area districts are shaded in green and the partially scheduled area districts are shaded in blue.

Korba has the highest rank in human development despite being a fully scheduled area district

because it has the highest industrial development in the state which benefits mostly the non-tribal

upper caste and other backward class population of the district which constitutes as much as

48.52% as compared to 41.5% for STs and 9.98% for the SCs. Instead historically the tribals in

Korba have been displaced with little compensation and no rehabilitation to make way for the

many aluminium and cement related industries that have come up.

Table 6: Human Development Indicators of Districts in Chhattisgarh

District

Human Development Index

2004 Workforce Partici-pation Rate 2001

Total Fertilitiy Rate 2001 Literacy Rate 2001

value rank value rank value rank value rank

Bastar 0.264 16 52.6 4 2.49 12 43.9 15

Dantewara 0.441 9 52.8 3 3.49 4 30.2 16

Kanker 0.397 10 54.1 1 2.6 9 72.9 3

Korea 0.307 15 47.7 10 2.53 11 63.7 10

Sarguja 0.418 11 49.8 8 3.6 2 54.8 14

Jashpur 0.455 7 53.5 2 3.32 5 63.8 9

Korba 0.625 1 42.6 14 2.69 8 61.7 12

Raigarh 0.43 10 47.5 11 1.86 16 70.2 5

Bilaspur 0.449 8 42.9 13 3.26 6 63.5 11

Mahasamund 0.577 3 47.9 9 3.11 7 67 7

Raipur 0.534 4 41.9 15 1.9 15 68.5 6

Durg 0.578 2 41.4 16 3.6 2 71.6 4

Rajnandgaon 0.374 14 50.6 5 2.07 13 77.2 1

Janjgir 0.5 5 43.7 12 2.55 10 66.9 8

Dhamtari 0.496 6 50.1 4 1.97 12 74.9 2

Kabirdham 0.326 15 49.9 7 3.67 1 55.2 13

Source: Chhattisgarh Human Development Report 2005

5. PESA and the Wider Legal Framework

A brief survey of the history of Indian law will be necessary to understand the importance

of PESA for tribal areas and the reasons for its non-implementation. The independent Indian

government in fact continued the policy introduced by the British of promising liberal natural

justice on paper and suppressing it in practice to pursue a policy of extraction of resources to fuel

modern industrial development.

20

5.1 Indian Legal History

The British when introducing the first Government of India Act in 1858 after the transfer

of the administration of the Indian territories of the East India Company to the Crown had

guaranteed to the people of India inter alia that due regard would be paid to the ancient rights,

usages and customs of India while framing new laws and that these laws would be administered

equally and impartially for the benefit of the people (Paranjape 1998). Almost immediately,

however, these principles were breached. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) was enacted in 1860 and

the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in 1861. These laws, with some minor amendments

only, are still in force today and have been codified in such a manner as to provide the

administration with a handy means of suppressing organised public dissent especially by tribals

who are illiterate and not conversant with the modern legal system.

A more harmful law from the point of view of the tribals was the Indian Forest Act 1864.

Applying the principle known in British law as Res Nullius (meaning that if a particular property

has no documented owner then it is free for acquisition) the British refused to recognise the

customary community rights of the adivasis over the forests in which they resided and handed

them over to the Forest Department created for this purpose. This law too in its last colonial

version of 1927, which effectively converts the tribals into trespassers in their own backyard,

continues to be in force at present. Yet another law that disinherited the tribals from their main

resource of land was the Land Acquisition Act 1894 which using the principle of eminent

domain empowered the government to dispossess the private owner of a piece of land for some

public purpose in exchange for a paltry compensation. Once again this law also has been retained

and widely used to displace people, particularly adivasis, in independent India in pursuit of

modern industrial development (Fernandes and Paranjpye 1997). After independence, The

Wildlife Protection Act 1972, was passed which provides for the setting up of sanctuaries and

national parks leading to further displacement of tribals. Yet another act that is inimical to the

traditional livelihoods of the tribals is The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation)

Act, 1957.

The biggest contradiction of all these acts in the post independence era was with Gandhi's

conception of "Gram Swaraj" or the promotion of grassroots democracy through the

establishment of autonomous village republics. Panchayati Raj was included in the Directive

Principles of State Policy which were non-justiciable. This meant that unlike fundamental rights

these could not be enforced through the courts. Basic rights like that to free education, health and

nutrition services and the means to a dignified livelihood too were included in this section. Thus

provisions that could have created an aware, educated, healthy and articulate population and

provided them with an institutional structure for implementing their development according to

their own genius were ignored totally by the governments both at the Centre and the States after

independence thus paving the way for the persistence of a form of internal colonialism and

feudalism. Matters were compounded by the fact that fundamental rights too were not easily

assured given the tremendous expenses involved in approaching the High Courts and the

Supreme Court for redressal of violations often by the State itself. While the erstwhile princes,

landlords and the capitalists often went to court to obstruct the path of justice for the poor, the

latter and especially the tribals could hardly afford to do so.

This in effect meant that the checks and balances that form a basic part of a liberal

democratic set up were not operational. Instead the executive consisting of the Council of

Ministers and the Bureaucracy were considerably more powerful than civil society from which

21

they gained their legitimacy. The party system ensured that the Council of Ministers and its

leader the Prime Minister would always be much more powerful than their fellow legislators. In

the initial years after independence, the overwhelming majority of the Congress party and the

charisma of its leader Jawaharlal Nehru also meant that the opposition was not very vocal or

effective in monitoring the actions of the government and Parliament was reduced to being as

ineffectual as a debating society. Moreover, preventive detention laws were enacted to silence

the protests of people's organisations and their leaders outside Parliament and thousands of such

people were jailed. Finally the press too was not as combative and investigative as it is today and

given the high level of illiteracy it did not have much of a reach. Thus the government and the

bureaucracy rode roughshod over democratic niceties to push through a process of modernisation

at the cost of the ordinary people by using colonial repressive laws and by flouting the

progressive aspects of the constitution. The bureaucracy, which continued in its colonial mindset,

was a power unto itself as it not only framed all the laws but also interpreted and administered

them to the detriment of an illiterate and unaware populace.

The tribals had special provisions included for their benefit in the Indian Constitution

under section 244 and elaborated in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. Those in the states of Assam,

Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram were to be covered by the provisions of the Sixth Schedule

while those in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya

Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan were to be covered by the provisions

of the Fifth Schedule. The basic philosophy behind these provisions was that the tribals had a

unique communitarian culture based on a subsistence non-accumulative lifestyle that was totally

at odds with the consumerist culture spawned by modern industrial development. Thus, it was

necessary to conserve this culture by secluding it from the aggressive thrust of modern

development. The British administrator, anthropologist and social activist Verrier Elwin was the

foremost proponent of this view and it was he who influenced Nehru in this matter and was the

brain behind his "Panchsheel" for tribal areas which spoke of their development keeping in mind

their uniqueness. However, given the tremendous imbalance of powers between the centralised

administration and the grassroots community level organisations of the tribals, these noble ideas

remained a pipe dream in reality.

The provisions under the Sixth Schedule purport to provide for a self contained code for

the governance of the tribes living in those areas through the institution of autonomous district

councils. Despite the fact that autonomous district councils gave some powers to the tribes in

respect of determining many aspects of their life, these were limited by the greater powers of the

states of which they were a part. In the case of Assam and Tripura, non-tribals who were in no

mood to cede any substantial concessions to the tribals dominated the state legislatures and

curbed the powers of the district councils. In the case of the states of Meghalaya and Mizoram,

the tribal leaders at the state level usurped all the powers emasculating the district councils.

Problems have been created by not giving sanction to the laws and rules passed by the councils

and also by restricting the funds available to them to carry out developmental activities.

Centralised development and immiserisation of the tribals has been the rule and the district

councils have fallen well short of the aspirations of the people in the northeastern states (Roy-

Burman 1997). Moreover, the long drawn armed insurgency in the area by the many tribal

groups demanding independence or autonomy has been countered by military suppression by the

Indian state leading to a situation in which the traditional grassroots tribal communities have

been totally superseded. Finally the spread of the consumerist market economy has further

undermined traditional tribal culture in the region.

22

5.2 Fifth Schedule

The situation in the Fifth Schedule areas has been even worse. This schedule sets out

stringent and wide ranging provisions for the governance of tribal areas in the mainland states.

Section 4 of the Schedule reads thus -

Section 4. Tribes Advisory Council - (1) There shall be established in each State having

Scheduled Areas therein and, if the President so directs, also in any State having Scheduled

Tribes but not Scheduled Areas therein, a Tribes Advisory Council consisting of not more than

twenty members of whom, as nearly as may be, three-fourths shall be the representatives of the

Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly of the State :

Provided that if the number of representatives of the Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative

Assembly of the State is less than the number of seats in the Tribes Advisory Council to be filled

by such representatives, the remaining seats shall be filled by other members of those tribes.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Tribes Advisory Council to advise on such matters pertaining to the

welfare and advancement of the Scheduled Tribes in the State as may be referred to them by the

Governor

(3) The Governor may make rules prescribing or regulating, as the case may be,--

(a)the number of members of the Council, the mode of their appointment and the appointment of

the Chairman of the Council and of the officers and servants thereof,

(b) the conduct of its meetings and its procedure in general; and

(c) all other incidental matters.

Thus the Governor along with the Tribes Advisory Council can if they so wish direct the

governance of the Scheduled Areas in a special manner and this is further reinforced by Section

5 of the Fifth Schedule which reads thus -

Section 5 (1). Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, The Governor may by public

notification direct that any particular Act of Parliament of of the Legislature of the State shall not

apply to a Scheduled Areas or any part thereof in the State or shall apply to a Scheduled Area or

any part thereof in the State subject to such exceptions and modifications as he may specify in

the notification and any direction given under this sub-paragraph may be given so as to have

retrospective effect.

(2) The Governor may make regulations for the peace and good government of any area in a

State which is for the time being a Scheduled Area.

In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power, such regulations

may –

a) Prohibit or restrict the transfer of land by or among members of the Scheduled Tribes in such

area;

b) Regulate the allotment of land to members of the Scheduled Tribes in such area;

c) Regulate the carrying on of business as money-lender by persons who lend money to members

of the Scheduled Tribes in such area;

23

(3) In making any such regulation as is referred to in sub-section (2), the Governor may repeal or

amend any Act of Parliament or of the Legislature of the State or any existing law which for the

time being applicable to the area in question.

Thus theoretically it is possible for the Governor of a state, on the advice of the Tribes

Advisory Council consisting of the tribal MLAs of the state, to prevent the application of or

repeal the Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act. The most important aspect of these

provisions is that the Governor may implement them so as to ensure "peace and good

government" in tribal areas as the framers of the Constitution felt that this could be possible only

if the tribals were allowed to develop according to their own laws and customs. However, this

has never happened because it is not a binding provision and only a suggestion like the Directive

Principles of State Policy, which finally has to depend on the executive for its implementation.

There has been only one meeting held each year of the Tribal Advisory Council in

Chhattisgarh from 2006 onwards despite the state having been formed in 2000. These meetings

have been concerned more with the cadastal survey of the Abujhmarh forested area which is

under the control of the Maoist rebels and the rehabilitation of the displaced villagers in the south

Bastar region than with the autonomous decentralised development of tribal communities as

envisaged in the Constitution.

Consequently, there has been neither peace nor good government in tribal areas. The

history of the past sixty years after independence is replete with innumerable struggles of the

central Indian tribals against the injustice meted out to them by the Indian state through the

ruthless implementation of the Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act and the cynical

non-implementation of the Fifth Schedule. Obviously the lack of grassroots governance

institutions was becoming more and more of a problem as the level of political awareness and

literacy was increasing and the centralised trickle down type of development was coming apart at

the seams. There was a need to provide a third tier of democratic institutions to take some of the

pressure of accountability off the shoulders of the state and central governments. Consequently

the pressure building up within the mainstream parties and from various mass organisations and

NGOs finally led to the passing of the 73rd

Constitutional Amendment in 1992 making

Panchayati Raj mandatory.

5.3 Enactment of PESA

A concerted campaign conducted by the National Front for Tribal Self-Rule constituted

by various mass organisations fighting for tribals rights led to the Scheduled Tribal Areas were

excluded from the purview of the Panchayat Raj amendments. Article 243M (4) (2) of Part IX of

the Constitution envisages that "Parliament may by law extend the Provisions of this part to the

Scheduled Areas..... subject to such exceptions and modifications as may be specified in such a

law". Thus this was the first time that a central law had not been automatically extended to the

Scheduled Areas. It was also stated that such a law enacted by Parliament would not amount to

an amendment of the Constitution and could thus be passed by a simple majority. Provision for

this special law was made keeping in mind the failure of the Governors to implement the

enabling provisions of the Fifth Schedule.

There was, however, no enthusiasm shown by the central government to pass this special

act and extend the provisions of the 73rd amendment to the Scheduled Areas. However, the

National Front for Tribal Self Rule continued its campaign. At about this time Dr B.D. Sharma

24

one of the main leaders of this campaign was engaged in a struggle along with the tribal people

of Mawlibhata and surrounding ten villages in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh against the

acquisition of their land for the setting up of a steel plant there. As a consequence of this struggle

in 1993, a Mawlibhata declaration for tribal self rule called "Hamara Gaon Mein Hamara Raj" or

Our Rule in Our Village was made public. This leant more weight to the campaign and finally

the Government of India constituted a Committee of Members of Parliament and Experts in 1994

to suggest the framework of the special law to be enacted for this purpose and the changes

necessary in other acts to accord with the spirit of the new act. This committee, which has since

come to be known as the Bhuria Committee after its chairman ex-M.P. Shri Dilip Singh Bhuria

submitted its Report on January 17th

1995. Some of the important recommendations of the

Committee are as follows (Sharma 1995)

1. The community habitation like a hamlet rather than an administrative unit like a

village should be the basic unit of the system of self-rule in tribal areas and this

should be designated as the Gram Sabha.

2. The Gram Sabha would function on the basis of consensus.

3. The Gram Sabha would concern itself with all matters of day to day life including

command over natural resources, resolutions of disputes, investigation and

adjudication of all matters including debts and management of institutions such as

schools, cooperatives, health centres etc. It would also be responsible for

execution of all developmental programmes including the selection of

beneficiaries. The administrative personnel at the village level would function

under its control.

4. The higher level institutions from the Gram Panchayat to the District Councils

would all have appellate jurisdiction and would be able to undertake development

works at their level and be constituted by people directly elected from the Gram

Sabhas.

5. The demographic structure of some tribal areas has undergone significant change

because of heavy influx of population of non-tribals and so a majority of members

in all elected bodies as also their chairman and deputy chairman should be tribals.

6. The tribal areas are mostly situated on the boundaries of administrative units be

they blocks, districts or states and so a reorganisation of tribal areas should be

undertaken so as to constitute tribal administrative units with homogeneous

social, economic, geographical and ethnic parameters. This reorganisation should

be completed within two years.

7. Many tribal areas have not been included in any of the Scheduled Areas. The

process of extension of Scheduled Areas that was started in 1976 came to a halt in

1978. This process should be restarted and all the remaining tribal areas should be

included in Scheduled Areas within one year.

8. The Constitution should be amended to make the provisions of the Fifth Schedule

mandatory and justiciable so as to rectify the indifferent functioning of the Tribal

Advisory Councils and the total neglect of their responsibility with regard to

Scheduled Areas by the Governors of the States. A Central Tribal Advisory

Council should also be constituted.

25

These were radical recommendations and so once again the government did not show any

intention of enacting the special act for extension of Panchayati Raj on these lines. Meanwhile

Panchayat elections were announced in February 1995 in Andhra Pradesh. The Andhra Pradesh

Government enacted a Panchayati Raj Act providing that only in blocks that had 100 percent

tribal population would the top posts for the various levels of Panchayat bodies be reserved for

tribals and in Scheduled Areas where the tribal population was in a minority there would be no

reservation whatsoever. Thus the tribals who had already lost on the demographic front due to

non-tribal influx and on the economic front due to land alienation were now also to lose on the

political front due to lack of a special law for the extension of Panchayati Raj to Scheduled

Areas. This was challenged by Arka Vasanth Rao and others in the Andhra Pradesh High Court

which held in its judjment of 23rd

March 1995 that the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act 1994

was unconstitutional and so could not apply to the Scheduled Areas (Sharma 2001).

This brought to the fore the serious problems that could arise in the absence of a special

central act extending the provisions of Panchayati Raj to the Scheduled Areas. The National

Front for Tribal Self-Rule stepped up its campaign to get this new law enacted. Meetings and

mass rallies were held all over the country and intense lobbying was resorted to with the Central

Government. Finally in desperation some of its members sat on an indefinite hunger strike at

Rajghat in 1996. This combined with some more lobbying finally resulted in the preparation of a

watered down version of the Bhuria Committee Recommendations, which was passed through

parliament without debate and became the now famous PESA. PESA as it stands is a far cry

from what is ideal for the tribals in the Fifth Schedule areas but something is better than nothing

and it has already proved to be a headache for the central and state governments and a boon to

tribal mass organisations. The paramount nature of the Gram Sabha in tribal areas has been

established even though it has not been vested with the wide-ranging powers that it should have.

Most importantly for the first time in the history of the country a law that has been drafted by the

people and not by a bureaucrat had been enacted. Thus it provided an opportunity to small tribal

mass organisations to try and assert the power of the people at the grassroots level.

The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 was

promulgated primarily to safeguard the interests of the tribals under Panchayati Raj in the Fifth

Schedule Areas in accordance with the spirit of the provisions in the Constitution of India.

Section 4 of this Act clearly states that "Notwithstanding anything contained under Part IX of the

Constitution, the Legislature of a State shall not make any law under that Part which is

inconsistent with ... (various features listed)". For the purpose of land acquisition for

development projects which is the main bone of contention between the State and the tribals and

cause for the non-implementation of PESA, the feature that is of importance is -

Section 4 (i) - the Gram Sabha or the Panchayats at the appropriate level shall be consulted

before making the acquisition of land in Scheduled Areas for development projects and before

resettling or rehabilitating persons affected by such projects in the Scheduled Areas; the actual

planning and implementation of the projects in the Scheduled Areas shall be co-ordinated at the

State level.

Accordingly the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Evam Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam 1993 as

amended in 1997 has the following provision as one of the powers of the Gram Sabha -

26

Section 129 c (iii) - The natural resources within the area of the village comprised by land, water

and forests will be managed in comprehensive accordance with the traditions of the village, the

provisions of the Constitution and any reasonable laws that may be in existence.

Moreover, for the purposes of land acquisition under the provisions of the Land

Acquisition Act 1894 an order no. F12-46/97/7-9 has been passed that makes the following

provisions -

Section 3 (6) - The Collector and the representative of the government department or the

company that wants to acquire land in the village will be present during the Gram Sabha meeting

called for the purpose of consultation and consider all the objections raised to the project and the

land acquisition by the oustees. (The earlier subsections of this section list the detailed

procedures for the oustees and the Gram Sabha in general to be fully informed about the

proposed project and land acquisition.)

Section 4 - The Gram Sabha if it is in agreement with the proposal for land acquisition will pass

a resolution to that effect and if it is not then after extensive consultation with the Collector and

the company representative will record the reasons for its disagreement in the resolution to that

effect and submit it to the Collector.

Thus it is clear that in Fifth Schedule Areas in Chhattisgarh natural resources including

land have to be managed as prescribed in the Constitution and any other law enacted for this

purpose and land acquisition too has to be done in consultation with the Gram Sabha and with its

agreement. The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution says in this regard as mentioned earlier -

Section 5 (2) - The Governor may make regulations for the peace and good government of any

area in a state which is for the time being a Scheduled Area. In particular, and without prejudice

to the generality of the foregoing power, such regulations may -

(a) prohibit or restrict the transfer of land by or among members of the Scheduled Tribes

in such area."

Accordingly there is a provision in the Chhattisgarh Land Revenue Code 1959

prohibiting such land transfer as follows -

Section 165 (6) - Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) the right of

Bhumiswami belonging to a tribe which has been declared to be an aboriginal tribe by the State

Government by a notification in that behalf, to the whole or part of the area to which this code

applies shall-

(i) in such areas as are predominantly inhabited by aboriginal tribes and from such date as

the State Government may, by notification specify, not be transferred nor it shall be

transferable either by way of sale or otherwise or as a consequence of transaction of loan

to a person not belonging to such tribe in the area specified in the notification.

This provision was repealed by the Chattisgarh Legislature in a blatant violation of the

Constitutional Provisions of the Fifth Schedule in 2006 and this was challenged in the High

Court resulting in the staying of the legislation but the final hearing is still pending. However,

since there is a stay the status quo is being maintained in this regard by the administration. It is

clear, therefore that the PESA and the various rules and laws made in accordance with it in the

State of Chhattisgarh are quite powerful in protecting the rights of the tribals to a just

development if they are properly implemented.

27

5.4 The Samatha Judgment

The question as to whether the provisions of Section 5 (2) (a) of the Constitution cited

above were binding on State Governments when it came to not leasing out land to private

companies for mining or other development purposes came up for interpretation in the Supreme

Court in Samatha vs State of A.P. and Others, Civil Appeal No. 4601, 4602 and 4603 of 1997

(1997(8) Supreme Court Cases 191). The Supreme Court in a landmark judgment in this case,

upheld the contention of the petitioners that Section 5 (2) was binding on the State Government

and it could not transfer government land or private land owned by tribals to non-tribals in Fifth

Schedule Areas under any circumstances whatsoever because this provision was part of the basic

structure of the Constitution and also the intent of its founding fathers in the Constituent

Assembly. The salient features of this important judgment which has come to be known as the

"Samatha Judgment" after the NGO Samatha which instituted the case are -

1. Agriculture is the mainstay of the livelihood of most tribal people and so land is an

integral part of their life support system. However, they have been continually alienated

from this valuable resource from the time of the British due to the settling of non-tribal

people in their lands, practice of forest cutting, laying of railway lines and the usurious

practices of moneylenders (Paras 10 - 14).

2. Concerned by the unrest triggered among the tribals due to such unjust treatment the

Colonial Government enacted the Scheduled Districts Act XIV in 1874 to seclude tribal

areas from the inroads of non-tribals and specially govern them for the benefit of tribals.

One important provision was to prevent the transfer of land ownership rights from tribals

to non-tribals. These provisions of seclusion and special governance of tribal areas

including that of non-alienation of tribal land were later continually strengthened and

their rationale was given final form in the report of the Simon Commission thus - "There

were two dangers to which subjection to normal laws would have specially exposed these

peoples, and both arose out of the fact that they were primitive people, simple,

unsophisticated and frequently improvident. There was a risk of their agricultural land

passing to the more civilised section of the population and the occupation of the tribals

was for the most part agricultural and secondly they were likely to get into the 'wiles of

moneylenders'. The primary aim of Government policy then was to protect them from

these two dangers and preserve their tribal customs and this was achieved by prescribing

special procedures applicable to these backward areas." (Paras 15 - 16)

3. The Government of India Act 1935 enacted in accordance with the report of the Simon

Commission had the following important provision which was later adopted in a

modified form in the Constitution -

Section 92 (2) - The Governor may make regulations for the peace and good

government of any area in a Province which is for the time being an excluded

area, or a partially excluded area, and any regulations so made may repeal or

amend any Act of the Federal Legislature, or of the Provincial Legislature or any

existing Indian Law, which is for the time being applicable to the area in

question. (Para 17)

4. This history of legal provisions for exclusion and special governance of tribal areas

especially with regard to non-alienation of tribal land from British times and the reality of

the non-implementation of these laws and policies on the ground leading to devastation

28

of tribal livelihoods is described in detail and summed up as follows - " The above bird's

eye survey discloses the enormity of the yawning gap between the making of the Acts

and their proper enforcement. The magnitude of the problem is of national importance

which needs to be tackled and solved by parliamentary law and effective enforcement."

(Paras 20 - 30)

5. The Constituent assembly debates on the various drafts too emphasised the need to

seclude and specially govern tribal areas and protect their lands from alienation by non-

tribals and a proposal to have some provision for allotment of land to non-tribals with the

permission of the Tribes Advisory Council was rejected unanimously and Section 6 of

the draft Constitution of 1948 reads thus - "(i) aliention of allotment of land to non-tribals

in Scheduled Areas, it shall not be lawful for a member of Scheduled Tribes to transfer

any land in person who is not a member of the Scheduled Tribes; (ii) no land in

scheduled area vested in the State within such area shall be alloted to person who is not a

member of the Scheduled Tribes except in accordance with the rules made in that behalf

by the Governor in consultation with the Tribal Advisory Council for the State." Finally

this was amended and the Fifth Schedule as it stands today was passed leading the court

to conclude as follows - "It would, therefore, be clear from the narration of the Debates in

the Constituent Assembly that various drafts were placed before the Constituent

Assembly. Suggestions and ultimate approval of the Fifth Schedule, as extracted

hereinbefore, would mainfest the animation of the founding fathers that land in the

scheduled area covered by the Fifth Schedule requires to be preserved by prohibiting

transfers between tribals and non-tribals and providing for allotment of land to the

members of the Scheduled tribes in such area and regulating the carying on of the

business by money-lenders in such area." (Paras 32 -35)

6. The Supreme Court has further stated - " It is seen and bears recapitulation that the

purpose of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules to the Constitution is to prevent exploitation of

truthful, inarticulate and innocent tribals and to empower them socially, educationally,

economically and politically to bring them into the mainstream of national life. The

founding fathers of the Constitution were conscious of and cognizant to the problem of

the exploitation of the Tribals. They were anxious to preserve the tribal culture and their

holdings. At the same time, they intended to provide and create opportunities and

facilities, by affirmative action, in the light of the Directive Principles in Part IV, in

particular, Articles 38, 39. 46 and cognate provisions to prevent exploitation of the tribals

by ensuring positively that the land is a valuable endowment and a source of economic

empowerment, social status and dignity of persons. The Constitution intends that the land

always should remain with the tribals. Even the government land should increasingly get

allotted to them individually and collectively through registered Cooperative Societies or

agricultura and farming Cooperative Societies composed solely of the tribals and would

be managed by them alone with the facilities and opportunities provided to them by the

Union of India through their Annual Budgetary allocation spent through the appropriate

State Government as its instrumentalities or local body in a planned development so as to

make them fit for self-governance. The words "peace and good government" used in the

Fifth Schedule require widest possible interpretation recognised as applied by this Court

in T.M. Kanniyan Vs. Income-tax Officer, Pondicherry & Anr. [(1968) 2 SCR 103 at l07-

08] and Queen Vs. Russel [(1882) 7 AC 829]." (Para 93)

29

7. Specifically regarding the PESA the Supreme Court has stated - "By the Constitution

[73rd Amendment] Act, 1992 amended Part IX of the Constitution, the principle of self-

government based on democratic principles at Gram Panchayat and level upwards was

introduced through Articles 343 to 343ZG. As an integral scheme thereof, the Andhra

Pradesh (Provision of the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1966 came to

be made. Section 4 (d) of that Act provides that "(N)otwithstanding anything contained

under Part IX of the Constitution, every Gram Sabha shall be competent to safeguard and

preserve...community resources". Clause (j) of Section 4 provides that planning and

management of minor water bodies in the Scheduled Areas shall be encrusted to the

Panchayats at the appropriate level. Under clause (m) (iii) the power to prevent alienation

of land in the Scheduled Areas and to take appropriate action to restore any unlawful

alienation of land of a Scheduled Tribe and under clause (iv) the power to manage village

markets, by whatever name called, are entrusted to the Gram Panchayats. It would

indicate that the tribal autonomy of management of their resources including the

prevention of the alienation of the land in the Scheduled Areas and taking of appropriate

action in that behalf for restoration of the same to the tribals, is entrusted to the Gram

Panchayats." (Para 94)

Thus, the Samatha Judgment clearly affirms that the provisions of the Fifth Schedule read

along with the provisions of PESA (the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Act provision cited above is

similar to the Andhra Pradesh one) give the tribal Gram Sabha in Fifth Schedule Areas the

paramount power of deciding on the use and ownership of the natural resources in its area of

jurisdiction including that of land. Under the circumstances if the permission of the Gram Sabha

has not been obtained in a transparent and democratic manner then the acquisition and transfer of

such land to non-tribals is a violation of the Constitutional Provisions.

5.5 PESA and Other Laws and Regulations

Other laws and regulations that affect the tribals should also be amended or applied

keeping the provisions of PESA in mind. Since the Indian Forest Act and the Wildlife Act too

have a land acquisition process through which people can be involuntarily displaced, these too

come under the purview of PESA and their implementation has to be sanctioned by the Gram

Sabha. As regards mining the Samatha judgment makes abundantly clear that mining in

Scheduled Areas can only be done either by a government company or by a cooperative of tribals

and that also with the agreement of the Gram Sabha.

The Chhattisgarh Abkari (Sanshodhan) Adhiniyam, 1997 [Chhattisgarh Excise Act

amendment], The Chhattisgarh Khanij Gaud Niyamavali, 1996 [Chhattisgarh Mining

Regulation], Chhattisgarh Laghu Vanopaj directives, [Chhattisgarh Minor Forest Produce

directives] are some of the other Acts and Rules that have been amended to conform to the

provisions of PESA making the Gram Sabha all powerful. Especially of importance is the power

given to the Gram Sabhas to regulate the production and sale of liquor, the mining of minor

minerals and the management of water resources.

Apart from this the Environment Protection Act 1986 provides that Environment Impact

Assessments (which will also include a social impact assessment based on a structured

interaction with the affected population) have to be made for all development projects with

outlay higher than Rs 100 crores involving large displacements and environmental impacts

which have then to be presented in public hearings in the affected area before clearance of the

30

project and especially those that require the diversion of forest land for non-forest use. The rules

for the conduct of these EIAs have been made more stringent and people friendly subsequent to

the passage of PESA. Thus the provisions of PESA regarding the informed consent of the Gram

Sabha has applies in this case too. Finally the two new legislations of National Rural

Employment Guarantee Act 2006 (NREGA) and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional

Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006 (STOTFDA) too stress the importance of the

Gram Sabha and its control over both the work to be done and the natural resources to be

augmented in the first case and in the management of forests in the second. Clearly the spirit of

PESA which tries to empower the tribals through the Gram Sabha has permeated the formulation

of many other laws and rules subsequently. The Gram Sabha is defined as a hamlet smaller than

a village and includes settlements in reserve forests which do not have revenue village status.

6. Violation of PESA in Chhattisgarh

The Society for Participatory Research in Asia had carried out a survey of Ambagarh

Chowki Block in Rajnandgaon in 2004 (PRIA 2004). This survey revealed that there was very

little awareness among both the administration and the people regarding the powerful provisions

of PESA. A preliminary interaction survey of the various NGOs and Civil Society Organisations

in the state of Chhattisgarh as part of the present study too revealed that even now, more than a

decade after the amendment of the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Act in accordance with PESA

there are only a handful of NGOs and CSOs that are aware of its powerful provisions. Obviously

the awareness of these provisions among the tribal populace is almost non-existent.

Consequently the primary reason for the present wanton violation of PESA in Chhattisgarh and

its non-implementation is the widespread lack of awareness among the people and the

government functionaries regarding its powerful provisions. Thus, given the limited scope of the

present research it was decided to study first hand some of the more glaring cases of violation of

PESA in situations where land had to be acquired for the purposes of some development project

or for establishment of protected wild life areas in the state.

These case studies were selected from an analysis of the news reports regarding the

movements going on against the violation of PESA and are not exhaustive. They only give an

indication of the extent of the problem. Focus group discussions were conducted in villages

affected by these projects independently by the study team to gather in depth information

regarding the situation prevailing on the ground. The various types of projects studied, the dates

of the site visits and the NGOs and CSOs working with the affected people are given in Table 7

below. The information in the narrative that follows is based primarily on these case studies and

wherever in addition secondary sources have been referred to the citations are given.

Table 7 : Major Development Project Induced Violations of PESA in Chhattisgarh

Type and Area of Project Dates of Study

Visit

NGOs and CSOs involved in

People's Struggle against Violation

Displacement due to Steel Plants and

mines in Dantewara and Bastar

Districts

15th

to 17th

March 2009

Tribal Welfare Society and

Adivasi Mahasangh

Displacement due to conflict between

Salwa Judum and Maoists in Bastar and

Dantewara Districts

18th

to 19th

March 2009

Vanvasi Chetna Ashram

31

Type and Area of Project Dates of Study

Visit

NGOs and CSOs involved in

People's Struggle against Violation

Displacement due to Steel Plants and

Iron-ore Mines in Kanker District

20th

to 22nd

March 2009

Parivartan Samaj Sevi Sanstha,

Adivasi Samata Manch.

Displacement due to Wildlife

Sanctuaries and other forest related

issues in Bastar, Kanker and Raipur

Districts

23rd

to 25th

March 2009

Parivartan Samaj Sevi Sanstha,

Nadi Ghati Morcha, Jan Jagriti

Samiti.

Displacement due to Wildlife

Sanctuaries and other forest related

issues in Bilaspur District

26th

to 27th

March 2009

Adivasi Maha Panchayat,

Navrachna Samaj Sevi Sanstha

Displacement due to River Privatisation

in Durg district and other water related

issues

28th

to 29th

March 2009

Nadi Ghati Morcha, Forum for

Fact Finding, Documentation and

Advocacy

Displacement due to Steel and Power

Plants in Raigarh District

20th

to 22nd

April

2009

Jan Chetna

Displacement due to Steel and Power

Plants and Coal mining in Korea,

Jashpur and Sarguja

23rd

to 25th April

2009

Ekta Parishad, Tribal Welfare

Society, Jan Sangharsh Zila

Committee.

On the basis of the research conducted it is clear that the major violations of PESA in

Chhattisgarh are due to the initiation of mining, industrial and river projects. This is followed by

that due to Wildlife Sanctuaries. A related problem is that of rampaging elephants that destroy

agricultural crops. Then there are the ill effects of the promotion of Jatropha as a bio-fuel on

common lands and also the problems associated with collection and marketing of Non-timber

forest produce and the related problem of exploitation by moneylenders. Finally there is the

displacement due to the Salwa Judum movement that is being supported by the Government in

its actions to suppress the Maoist rebellion in the state. These different kinds of displacement

and the specific ways in which PESA has been violated in them have been described below. The

case studies have been grouped together industry sector wise so as to be able to draw relevant

conclusions from them.

6.1 Steel Plants

The world's best quality iron ore is situated in fairly large quantities in Chhattisgarh as

mentioned earlier. So there is a rush by Indian steel conglomerates to set up steel plants big and

small to capitalise on this ore at a time when iron ore deposits the world over are being rapidly

depleted. Since steel plants require a lot of land and water and also cause serious pollution, their

establishment involves tremendous social and environmental impacts for the local population.

Four case studies are presented below.

6.1.1 Nagarnar - The first case of violation of PESA in connection with the setting up of

a steel plant in Chhattisgarh is that of the proposed National Mineral Development Corporation

(NMDC) Steel Plant in Nagarnar Gram Panchayat in Bastar district. The process started with the

holding of a Gram Sabha on June 11th 2001 for getting consent for land acquisition. However

32

according to the villagers the detailed Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Report which is

mandatory under the Environment Protection Act was not presented and the officials only

explained that a steel plant using new technology was to be set up and land was required for this

purpose. The public hearing on the EIA was in fact conducted only later on November 20th

2001

in Jagdalpur which is 17 kms away from Nagarnar and the people were not informed. There was

immediate opposition from the people present and so the meeting ended inconclusively.

However, the Collector issued a press statement that the villagers had agreed to give their lands

for the project.

The villagers found on June 16th

2001 that the district administration later manipulated

the records of the meeting of the Gram Sabha. The minutes book of the Gram Sabha which is

normally kept in the Panchayat office was taken away by the Panchayat Officer and then

replaced some days later. Pages were torn out from the books and a new set of minutes had been

written stating that the Gram Sabha had acquiesced to the setting up of the project. The villagers

then got in touch with the National Campaign for Tribal Self Rule and filed a complaint with the

National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on August 2nd

2001. The local

administration took the notices sent to it by the Commission lightly and sent routine replies.

Tthe process of land acquisition was instead expedited and the final award under Section

9 of the Land Acquisition Act was passed on September 29th 2001 in a hurry in a complete

travesty of the process of consultation. The people had never been informed under Section 4 of

the act or later under Section 6 either thus depriving them of their right to file objections. While

most of the villagers were adamant not to accept this fraudulent procedure the administration

lured some villagers and told them that they were being provided finance for the purchase of

agricultural implements and material. They were told that finance would be provided to them for

the purchase of bullock carts. They were taken to the Collector’s office and were asked to sign

on some documents that they could not read and cheques were given to them. Later, they were

told that the cheques were the compensation for their land and not to provide finance.

The National Commission of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes on October 1st 2001

asked for a detailed report on the comprehensive complaint filed by the people regarding the

fraudulent Gram Sabha records. After this in the afternoon of October 23rd

2001 the

administration began targeting the leaders of the movement against the project and they were

arrested. Immediately the women of the village went and sat in a dharna in front of the police

station demanding the release of their leaders. At around 10 p.m. the police suddenly cane

charged the women who were sitting peacefully outside the station and arrested some of them

while dispersing the rest. The arrested women were severly beaten up in custody. A heavy police

force of 150 personnel along with high level administrative and police officers arrived at

Nagarnar at midnight. They were confronted by a large number of villagers demanding the

release of the arrested persons. The villagers refused to let the police take the arrested persons

away to Jagdalpur and encircled the police station. Finally at 10.30 am on 24th October the police

resorted to extensive cane charging, tear gassing and also firing to disperse the crowd of people

and severely injured many of them. The villagers, women in the forefront continued to encircle

the police station despite this and finally the detained persons were released after the Collector

intervened.

The National Commission for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes meanwhile had

a meeting on 23rd

November 2001 with the Secretary of Panchayats, Government of Chhattisgarh

33

and the Chaiman and Managing Director of the NMDC and finally in its recommendations the

Commission conveyed to the Collector on 12th December 2001 that

(i) the land acquisition process was null and void because it had not been done properly

(ii) criminal offences had been committed whose by the administraion

(iii) guidelines regarding rehabilitation had not been followed and

(iv) the entire process should be redone

Despite this the NMDC finalised the contract for the building of the boundary wall on

26th December 2001 prompting the villagers to sit on dharna at the site from January 1st 2002.

The NMDC with the help of the administration tried to forcibly begin construction of the wall on

January 31st 2002 but the people resisted this. A massive Gram Sabha meeting was held on

March 2nd

2002 in which 3,504 persons attended and a resolution was passed demanding that the

project should not be built on agricultural land but on government scrubland which was available

in plenty in the area. The administration held a discussion with the people after this on March 9th

2002 and agreed to their demands. However, the very next day a heavy police force was sent

down to the village and massive repression was carried out on the people and many were arrested

and were beaten up and forced to accept the cheques for compensation. After this from March

12th 2002 the construction of the boundary wall was begun.

The irony is that despite such blatant violation of the provisions of PESA to acquire the

land the steel plant has not yet been built. Apart from this there were violations of the

Environment Protection Act and the Wildlife Act. Also a rule of the Ministry of Environment

and Forests - S.O. 470 (E) dated June 21st, 1999, Environment (Siting for Industrial Projects)

Draft Rules was also violated. Section (2) of this rule prohibits the setting up of steel plant in a

25 km belt around the periphery of National Parks, Sanctuaries, and core zones of Biosphere

Reserves. The Kanger Ghati National Park is situated in the vicinity of Nagarnar within a 25 km

radius and so the setting up of the steel plant violates this rule.

6.1.2 Lohandiguda - Tata Steel has proposed the setting up of a 5.2 million tonnes per

annum steel plant in Lohandiguda of Bastar district. The area to be acquired is spread over the

ten villages of Beliapal, Badeparoda, Dabpal, Badangi, Churagaon, Chindgaon, Kumhali,

Takraguda, Belar in Lohandiguda block and Sirisguda in Tokapal block on both sides of the

Jagdalpur to Chitrakot road and flanking the Indrawati River. According to the notification

served under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act a total of 2,169 hectares of land are to be

acquired of which 1,861 hectares belong to tribal farmers and the rest is government land. In

accordance with the provisions of PESA a Gram Sabha meeting was held on 20th July 2006 to

get the agreement of the people to the land acquisition process. The people expressed stiff

opposition to the project but despite that fraudulent minutes were written that the Gram Sabha

had acquisced in the land acquisition and the rehabilitation package being offered by the Tata

Steel company. The villagers have filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Chhattisgarh High

Court challenging this fraudulent land acquisition process and one of them has stated on oath in

an affidavit that that he wasn't present at this meeting despite his name being mentioned as being

the Chairman of this meeting. Similarly others have stated on oath that they too were absent from

the meeting even though the records mention that they were present. The meeting was held under

heavy police presence and later the people of the area have been constantly threatened and many

have been put behind bars under preventive sections of the CrPC to break down their resistance.

34

However, the people have organised themselves under the banner of "Prastavit Tata Steel

Punarvas Samiti" and with the help of the All India Adivasi Mahasangh and its secretary Manish

Kunjam have fought this violation of PESA both at the ground level as well as in policy and

legal forums at the state and national levels. The petition filed in the High Court in Bilaspur has

also mentioned the violation of PESA but this is pending for final disposal after admission and so

like the other case in which the amendment of the Chhattisgarh Land Revenue Code has been

challenged here too there seems to be no immediate chance of a decision. The demands being

made by the people are as follows -

1. The project should be implemented by a joint sector company in which the

government has 49% share so as to ensure that some of the profits from the

company are used for the development of the tribals.

2. All the oustees are landholding farmers and should be given alternative developed

agricultural land as well as compensation for the land they are giving up at

prevailing market rates which range from Rs 5 lakhs to Rs 10 lakhs per hectare

(The Tata Steel, has offered compensation of Rs 2 lakh per hectare for un-

irrigated land with a single crop, and Rs 2.5 lakh for irrigated land with double

crop only). They should also be provided with house plots in a developed colony

with all civic amenities like water supply and sanitation, roads, electricity, schools

and hospitals in accordance with the Chhattisgarh Rehabilitation Policy 2005.

3. One member from each of the oustee families should be given employment as a

skilled worker in the project and if need be they should be provided free training

to be able to qualify for such employment.

4. There should also be reservation for all posts in the new project for Scheduled

Tribes, Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Castes commensurate with their

proportion in the population in Bastar district.

5. The compensation to be provided should be in the form of shares in the new

project and its ancillaries and all work to be outsourced by the project should be

given to cooperatives of the oustees and other Scheduled Tribe people of the area.

6. The land records of the area have not been revised since the last settlement in

1991 and so they do not reflect the true situation with respect to landholding in

the area. These should be rectified before determining the award of compensation.

Former legislator and chairman of the Adivasi Mahasangh, Manish Kunjam, who is

leading the movement against the project, said the administration was delaying the process of

organising the mandatory public hearings to be held under the provisions of the Environment

Protection Act. The government is wary of holding the hearing in the face of the protest against

the Tata Steel plant.

A new protest has now snowballed in the area against the state government's move to

supply water from the Indrawati river for constructing the plant and meeting the demand of water

for the project. The Indrawati is considered the lifeline of Bastar as it is a holy river for the

tribals. The river originates from Rampur-Ghumal village in Orissa's Kalahandi district. But a

major part of the river, 500 kms of the total length of 800 kms, flows in Chhattisgarh. About 43

per cent of the tribals in the interior parts of Bastar depend on the Indrawati for their livelihood

as the river is a major source of irrigation, fisheries and drinking water. The continuing flow of

the river in Chhattisgarh is itself at stake as its course is returning to Orissa and merging with

Jora nullah instead of entering the Bastar region. The Indrawati river will totally merge with Jora

35

nullah in 10 years if immediate steps are not taken to reduce the width of the nullah according to

a report prepared for the Central Water Commission. The governments of Orissa and

Chhattisgarh had earlier agreed to construct a structure to check diversion of the course. But no

headway has been made. Water level recedes fast after the monsoon and, at many places,

Indrawati gets dry as the natural flow diverts into Jora nullah near the state border and returns to

Orissa. The industrial use of the Indrawati water would deepen the crisis because if Tata Steel

draws water, it would set a new precedent and the NMDC would also demand water from

Indrawati for its proposed sponge iron unit in Nagarnar. Apart from this there is also the issue of

the pollution that the plant will cause to the river which has to be ameliorated and since the

Environmental Impact Assessment report has not been put to public scrutiny yet, there is no

information regarding this.

Thus, there are a number of legal provisions that are being violated apart from that of

PESA and like in the case of Nagarnar there have been many repressive actions by the police to

threaten the people into submission including the filing of false cases and imprisonment of the

local leaders of the movement. Yet another meeting of the Gram Sabha was organised on July

20th, 2006. Two days before this the district administration held a meeting with the villagers.

According to the people of Badangi and Belar villages, the collector told them that all the

demands mentioned earlier had been accepted. The villagers asked the collector for written proof

but instead, the administration imposed Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code on the whole

region, restricting the assembly of people, and filed cases against 55 Gram Sabha leaders.

Seventeen people were arrested. Even then, the Gram Sabhas didn’t act as per the government’s

wishes. No Sabha could be held in two of the Panchayats; in three of the Panchayats where

Sabhas were held, no decision could be taken. The villagers today say they were pressurised to

give up their land and thumb impressions were forcibly taken from the tribals and consent

obtained for land acquisition. The district administration managed to get decisions in their favour

in two Gram Sabhas only. The tribals called a Gram Sabha on their own on February 24th

, 2007,

and challenged the land acquisition process but in Takraguda and Belar, the police attacked the

people and arrested Manish Kunjam, the national president of the Adivasi Mahasabha. In this

way through the application of force and the weaning away of people through bribes the

administration has continued the land acquisition blatantly violating the provisions of PESA.

6.1.3 Dhurli - Dhurli is a little village nearly 14 km from Bacheli town in Dantewara

district. This is the town in which the NMDC has its washeries for the iron ore that it has been

mining from the Bailadila iron ore mines set up in 1975 to supply ore to Japan. Essar Steel

limited has signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MoU) with the government of

Chhattisgarh for a 3.2 million metric ton steel plant with an investment of Rs. 6000 crores. 600

hectares of land in Bhansi and Dhurli villages are to be acquired for this purpose. When the

Adivasi Mahasangh made a routine Right To Information application to check the contents of the

MoU, its request was rejected. The grounds for the rejection was that the MoU between the

Government of Chhattisgarh and Essar Steel (and also Tata Steel) could not be shown to any

third party as it would be prejudicial to the privacy of the second party.

The price offered to the people was Rs. 2,00,000 per hectare and Rs. 10,000 per mahua

tree. Each full grown mahua tree gives the owner more than Rs. 20000 in a single year. Rs.

2,00,000 per hectare is well below the market prices of agricultural land in Dhurli and Bhansi

villages which are situated on the National Highway from Jagdalpur to Vishakhapatnam.

Moreover Essar Steel had earlier commissioned the world's second longest iron ore slurry

36

pipeline to carry iron ore fines from Bailadila to Vishakhapatnam and had not properly

compensated the people whose lands they had acquired for the purpose. Under the circumstances

the people did not have any confidence in Essar Steel's announcement that it would set up an ITI

and train the people of Dhurli so that they could be employed in the plant. So naturally the

people began protesting against this land acquisition. The people from the village who are

leading the movement against land acquisition were arrested on 26th August 2006 by police

under the charges of IPC sections 107, 151 and 116, which are all preventive in nature, so as to

intimidate the people prior to the Gram Sabha to be held on 30th August 2006.

Heavy police force was deployed in the village after the arrest of the village leaders and

on 30th

August, the primary school which was to be the location of the Gram Sabha meeting was

heavily barricaded and guarded. People were called in singly and asked to sign on the minutes

register in which a resolution approving the land acquisition process had already been written.

About 39 non-literate people were so forced to sign but the rest of the villagers refused and went

away protesting. After this the Gram Sabha meeting was suspended by the District Collector.

This meeting had been attended by a massive contingent of district officials and also various

members of the legislative assembly, the leader of the opposition and the Minister in Charge of

the district as well as the executives of Essar Steel. Essar Steel issued press statements after this

that the sanction of the Gram Sabha had been obtained and work would progress apace.

However, due to the inadequate number of signatures another Gram Sabha had to be held

on 9th

September 2006. Once again it was concluded under the shadow of the gun. Section 144 of

CrPC was imposed preventing assembly of people in the whole region and again the attendees

were the district collector, the local MLA and his whole entourage, the MLA of the neighbouring

constituency and his whole entourage, various officials, and very very few villagers. As before

top Essar Steel executives too attended the Gram Sabha. The whole area was sealed and the

roads were blocked by the jawans of the Central Industrial Security Force. Thus, there was a

clear violation of PESA by the state which was countered by the united opposition of the people

and the process of land acquisition has still not begun.

6.1.4 Taraimal - The steel plant of Nalwa Sponge Iron Limited (NSIL) has been in

operation in Taraimal village, Raigarh disrtict, since 2001, when its first Direct Reduced Iron

(DRI) kiln was started. This process of iron making is less capital intensive than the traditional

blast furnace based steel plants which have to have a size of atleast 3 million tonnes per annum.

Moreover, the quality of coal needed for the DRI process which is also called the sponge iron

process because of the perforated finished product is not as stringent as that for blast furnaces.

Thus, in recent years there has been a mushrooming of sponge iron plants in Chhattisgarh based

close to the coal mines in Raigarh and Bilaspur. NSIL is located about 12-13 kms north of

Raigarh town. the Kelo river, which is the main source of water of Raigarh, flows at a distance of

about 500-700 metres from the plant. Since its inception the plant has grown so that today NSIL

is operating with 6 DRI kilns, a captive power plant, a coal washery and a steel melting shop. As

usual the land acquisition process followed was faulty and moreover due to heavy pollution from

the chimmey stacks and the slag and ash heaps farming in the vicinity had become a problem.

There had also been subsequent land grabbing and encroachment onto government nistaar

(common) lands and forest lands further inconveniencing the people. Drawal of excessive

ground water and also water from the Kelo river had created a severe water scarcity in the area.

The flying dust from the piles of ash dumped all around the plant has settled on trees, plants and

crops affecting agriculture and has also caused serious health problems in the community.

37

In January 2006, notices were issued in local newspapers announcing a public hearing for

the further diversification of the units of NSIL at Gharghoda the tehsil town. The hearing, which

is mandatory under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification 1994, was scheduled for

3rd March 2006. But the local communities who had been suffering the problems in Taraimal

began opposing this move. They based their opposition on the fact that the plant had blatantly

violated environmental conditions for operation. The Chattisgarh Environment Conservation

Board (CGECB) had given its consent for establishment of the plant to NSIL on 22nd

October

2001 with 23 conditions. These included:

a. Limiting emission of particulate matter from stacks to 150 mg per cubic meter.

b. Provision for measurement of water consumed and waste water discharged in

different categories.

c. Installation of separate electric metering arrangements for running of pollution

control devices. This should be done in such a manner that the electricity supply

would be tripped if pollution control devices stopped functioning.

d. Arrangement for continuous source emission and ambient air monitoring.

Submission of a monthly report to the CGECB of this.

e. Submission of environment statement at the end of every year by the company.

f. Taking up extensive steps for tree plantation in the area.

Several notices were issued by the CGECB to NSIL, but the non-compliance continued.

Some of these notices had clearly indicated that no further expansion of NSIL could take place

and also that a comprehensive EIA should be carried out for the plant. The public hearing for the

proposed expansion brought these concerns to the fore once again. The hearing itself was

scheduled 20 kilometres away from Taraimal at Gharghoda, making it quite difficult for people

from the affected areas to attend. However due to the seriousness of the issue some villagers still

made the long journey arriving at the hearing site in a trickle. Consequently the important task of

raising the various issues and demanding the cancellation of the public hearing had to be taken

up by a few representatives and activists from the region. Along with the villagers these activists

and organisations made a written submission regarding the problems. This mentioned the

environmental and social problems of the operation of NSIL and the inadequacies of the EIA for

the diversification prepared by the consultants of the project. The people present first sought the

cancellation of the meeting on the grounds that it was held too far away from the site of the

proposed expansion. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), J. Mohabe, flatly refused the

demand for cancellation of the hearing. The SDM was on the panel as a representative of the

District Collector, who joined the hearing almost three hours after the official time specified in

the public notice. When their first demand was refused, those present pointed out that the

operations of NSIL had already been arraigned for legal, environmental and social violations as

noted by the government itself. Given these, it would hardly be proper to allow further

expansion. A public hearing, they argued, could only be held once the impacts were assessed

properly and given the non-compliance with many of the conditions for NSIL's operations, they

asked that the plant itself be shut down until the required conditions were complied with. The

SDM, however, did not grant their repeated demands that the hearing be postponed. When the

collector arrived the demands were raised again. It took some effort to convince him, but

eventually, the Collector finally ordered the cancellation of the hearing. It was announced that

the next date of the public hearing would be intimated later after carrying out a detailed

estimation of the adverse impacts of the NSIL plant.

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However, instead of carrying out a detailed assessment of the violations of NSIL within

an hour of the cancellation of the hearing the next date of the hearing was set for 20 days later on

24th March 2006. This was confirmed a week later when notices were published in local

newspapers. The whole process of public hearing was being subverted and instead of taking the

public opinion into consideration for determining whether clearance should be given a formality

was sought to be done to provide clearance to the expansion. Consequently the company and the

administration gradually bribed and threatened people into giving up their opposition to the

extension of the plant and all the clearances were obtained.

6.1.5 Pollution from Sponge Iron Plants - The Sponge iron plants are situated all over

Chhattisgarh and not only in tribal areas like Taraimal. They are causing immense harm through

heavy extraction of ground water and the pollution caused through their gaseous emissions and

solid waste disposal needs to be studied as a special case of violation of not only PESA but the

Panchayati Raj Act in general. Even in places like Urla and Sarova just next to the capital city of

Raipur the land nearby is covered with black residue from sponge iron plants. This waste is toxic

as it contains huge amounts of heavy metals. The deposit of this toxic waste combined with the

reduction in ground water levels due to heavy withdrawal by these factories means that the

concentration of toxicity in the water that the people drink increases even further. Everything in

the vicinity of these plants - houses, clothes and agricultural fields, are coated black with the

suspended matter emanating from the chimney stacks. There is also a strong possibility of

Carcinogenic effects of this widespread pollution (Jan Chetna and NCAS 2006).

India is the world's largest producer of sponge iron. With steel prices spiralling out of

control, sponge iron is a thriving business. The investment in setting up a sponge iron plant, with

its rudimentary technology and little machinery, can be recovered in just over a year. Part of the

increase in the price of steel manufacturing by the blast furnace route comes because of the

increase in the price of one crucial raw material, coking coal, that India largely imports. Sponge

iron is an alternative route to produce steel by using low grade coal, which is much cheaper. So,

as the price of steel rises, the sponge iron industry makes profits without the same costs as the

big steel makers. As a result, plants of all sizes, many less than 100 tonnes per annum have come

up all over the state, literally without any check, in the backyard of people's homes. Since it is

very costly to dispose of the solid waste and also clean the gaseous emissions before releasing

them into the air this is not being done. The people invariably protest but the Gram Sabhas which

pass the resolutions against these plants are ignored and the regulatory authorities which have to

give clearances to these projects and also monitor their operations with regard to pollution and

water use are non-functional.

Three and a half years ago in March 2006, responding to growing protests from people

affected by sponge iron pollution, the Central Pollution Control Board issued draft standards for

this industry. Under these standards, the industry would not be allowed, 'under any

circumstances', to dump its waste on agricultural lands, no new sponge iron plant would be

commissioned without installation of pollution-control equipment capable of meeting stringent

air-quality standards and plants would need to be sited at distances from villages and from each

other. These draft statndards have not been notified as yet. Thus when considering the issue of

industrialisation and its environmental and social impact it is not just the violation of PESA or

Panchayati Raj Act that has to be taken into consideration but also the violation or non-existence

of environmental standards under the Environment Protection Act and the violation of

rehabilitation policies and the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act.

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6.2 Power

The foremost method in India, which has abundant coal reserves, for generation of

electricity is through coal based thermal power stations. Jashpur, Raigarh and Bilaspur districts

have the main coal bearing seams in the state and so the Chhattisgarh Government has initiated

a policy to exploit this abundance of coal by establishing a power hub in the region based on coal

mine pit head thermal power stations. Two case studies are presented here regarding the social

and environmental violations involved in the setting up of such a power hub.

6.2.1 Tamnar - The 1,000 MW thermal power plant of Jindal Steel and Power Limited

(JSPL) in Tamnar village in Raigarh district has been established by flouting various laws and

regulations. Environmental clearance for the first phase of the project was granted on September

24th 1997. According to the EIA notification, clearance was granted for a period of five years.

This expired in September 2002. Despite this a fresh process for seeking clearance was not

initiated. Yet construction activity at the Tamnar site continued and the first phase was

completed in 2005. The power plant also required clearance from the Ministry of Environment

and Forests for the diversion of 177.542 hectares of forestland for the construction of a reservoir

and an 18-metre-high dam to provide water to the plant. Construction activity here included

diversion of the Kurkut river in order to build the dam. The need for forest clearance is mandated

by the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 and it was clearly specified in the 1997 environmental

clearance letter which specified that construction activity could not begin unless clearance was

granted. Forest clearance was only granted on August 8th 2005. However, in complete violation

of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and the conditions specified in the environment clearance

letter, JPL began construction of the Tamnar power plant and also started diverting the Kurkut

river at Rabo village. Truckloads of mud were brought into the village and dumped in the river in

October 2004 and trees were cut down.

This led to angry protests by the villagers whose natural surroundings, lives and

livelihoods would be seriously impacted by the building of the dam and the river's diversion.

Land too would be submerged. Unfortunately, by the time the villagers were able to stop the

work, JSPL contractors had already filled half the river. It was only after the intervention of the

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister vide letter No. 11529 dated 2.11.2004 that the work stopped

temporarily. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Chhattisgarh

Environment Conservation Board and divisional forest officers were all informed of the situation

at various points of time. However despite this the forest clearance was granted in 2005 three

years after the expiry of the environmental clearance in 2002. This is itself a violation, since the

forest clearance could only be given conditional upon the environmental clearance being valid.

Any extension of the environmental clearance would have required a fresh clearance process to

be undertaken including a public hearing and preparation of another Environment Impact

Assessment (EIA) report. But this was not done and instead the MoEF extended the

environmental clearance in 2004 on the basis of the fact that construction had been proceeded

with disregarding the reality that this was done illegally. Thus the regulatory bodies in complete

violation of the Environment Protection Act and also PESA and the Forest Conservation Act

sanctioned the project with scant regard for the opinion of the affected people.

Meanwhile, JSPL applied for clearance of the second phase, for which a public hearing

was organised on October 7th 2005. There were various pressures applied at the village level. On

October 6th

2005, a meeting was held at Rabo village with the intention of convincing the

villagers to accept construction of the dam and prevent them from attending the public hearing

40

on October 7th. The meeting included the local MLA, in whose constituency Rabo and Tamnar

villages fall, the District Collector, Superintendent of Police, Sub-divisional Officer, Gharghoda,

as well as representatives from JSPL and members of the police force. It was in such an

atmosphere that the villagers were asked to accept construction of the dam and negotiate

compensation. Not surprisingly, the public hearing turned out to be a sham. On October 7th

2005

hundreds of women and men gathered at the public hearing organised at the block office in

Gharghoda tehsil of Raigarh district. Just as the public hearing began, the people demanded that

it be cancelled because, firstly, the EIA report and its executive summary had not been made

available at the five designated places prior to the hearing. And, secondly, the public hearing

panel had no knowledge of the procedures prescribed for a public hearing under the EIA

Notification, 1994. On learning this the four panel members decided to step down. Logically this

would have meant the cancellation of the hearing, as the panel that had to send in its

recommendations to the central government was incomplete. But the District Collector ignored

this and went ahead with the hearing. The villagers and local activists and supporters from

outside Raigarh, including social activist Medha Patkar, filed their written and verbal objections

to what had taken place. Representatives from the affected villages of Tamnar, Salihabhata,

Kunjemura, Pata and Libra brought up the main livelihood issues concerning villagers in the

region. They stressed that the plant's expansion would impact agricultural as well as grazing

land. Local activists also submitted a technical critique as part of their objections, highlighting

the problems of air pollution, fly-ash proliferation and groundwater depletion. It was pointed out

that due to the second phase expansion, 52,368,000 million litres of water per day would be

extracted. This quantity was equivalent to the drinking water requirements of 238,036

households at water supply of 40 litres per capita per day. For the entire 1,000 MW plant this

would double to 476,072 families and a population of 2.75 million. A severe drinking water

crisis would result in the region.

Villagers’ protests and objections of Gram Sabhas have been ignored by the Chhattisgarh

Government. Fifty two panchayats of the area unanimously passed a resolution that the villagers

would not give up their land for the construction of the power plant. Despite this registered

dissent, lands of the tribals were sold under fallacious terms, and almost all the common property

land in the area, around 800 hectares, is now under the direct control of JSPL. In its plan for

expansion in Saraipali village, JSPL has completely bypassed critical environmental norms.

JSPL had started construction at the proposed site even before it received clearance from the

Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for the forest land as mentioned earlier. After

opposition heightened the company carried out an EIA but that too was superficial and false.

Ecologically sensitive habitats like national parks, biosphere reserves, wildlife sanctuaries,

archaeological monuments, health resorts and defence installations within a 25 km radius of the

site were not mentioned in the EIA report, which facilitated the grant of a clearance order for the

company from MoEF.

Consequently despite such vocal protests once again as in the case of NSIL the JSPL

management and the administration worked hand in glove to bribe and coerce the people into

submission and broke the unity of the movement against the project.

6.2.2 Pathadi - The LANCO Amarkantak Power Company is setting up a coal based

thermal power plant in Pathadi and Sarabgundia villages in Korba district to produce 1920 MW

of electricity. The commercial arm of the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC),

approved an $8 million equity investment in Lanco in June 2007 and in May 2008 approved a

41

further $100 million investment for a long-term IFC-Lanco partnership. The IFC adopted in 2006

a new set of social and environmental safeguards for its funded projects especially those like the

Pathadi one in which displacement of tribals is involved. These, however, have not been properly

applied. The IFC gave the project a 'Category A' social and environmental rating, which is the

highest for social and environmental project impacts, due to the potential significant adverse

social and environmental impacts. In the affected villages where people depend on small-scale

agriculture as the main basis of their livelihoods, local families have lost a third of their land to

the project. The first phase of land acquisition in 2005 was deeply flawed. It occurred without

sufficient consultation or provision of appropriate information to the affected peoples. Gram

Sabha meetings were not conducted properly and no objection resolutions were passed in the

presence of only 10 percent of the people. The 'Category A' social and environmental rating and

the fact that the project impacts tribals, imposes strict responsibilities on both Lanco and the IFC

to see that justice is done to those who are affected by the project. However, Lanco failed to

provide adequate information to local communities and made promises about jobs and

compensation that have not been delivered. The company published inaccurate social and

environmental assessments two years after the start of construction. The flawed social

assessment stated that the tribals in the local villages have no spiritual or cultural ties to the land.

This is false as the tribals still maintain ceremonial relations with the land acquired for the

project. There will be serious negative consequences from the operation of the power plant for

local communities due to polluted rivers and lands and receding water levels. The IFC

monitoring team visited the area and met the people but nothing came of this consultation.

During the last assembly election in Chhattisgarh, neither of the political parties addressed the

violations of peoples' rights by the company. The desperation of people, particularly of youths, is

high. Villagers have started to bribe the local administration so that they can gain employment in

the factory. Consequently the affected people have lost out twice. First they lost their livelihoods

through the acquisition of land and now they are paying to get jobs in the plant.

The IFC's sustainability policy requires that its staff ensure that there is broad community

support before a project is financed but in this case the IFC has condoned the violation by Lanco

of both the Indian law in the form of PESA and its own safeguards.

6.2.3 Chandan Nagar - The Indian Farmers Fertilizer Co-operative Ltd (IFFCO) had

proposed to set up a coal-based 1000 MW power plant in Chandan Nagar in Sarguja district in

March 2005. The villagers organised against the project under the banner of the Gram Sabha

Parishad and after a struggle of more than two years finally managed to force IFFCO to

withdraw in May 2008. Villagers said the company had conducted "secret surveys' before

approaching them with the proposal. They reacted by attacking the IFFCO officials. The

company even got one of the villagers arrested in December 2007. But he was released within

hours after over 1,000 people marched to the police station. This was followed by a rally in

February 2008. The provisions of PESA helped the villagers to remain resolute because it

mandates the Gram Sabha to approve of plans, programmes and projects for social and economic

development before they are taken up for implementation. Villagers said that IFFCO planned to

build five dams on the Atem river to divert water for the power plant, besides threatening to take

away village land and also cause a lot of pollution. The villagers also said that the company had

prepared a false EIA report to get environmental clearances. This is one of the rare cases where

PESA has been successfully implemented and the administration has not used undue force to

threaten the Gram Sabha into submission as it has done elsewhere.

42

6.3 Rivers and Dams

The requirement of water for industrial and urban development has traditionally been a

major reason for the impoundment of rivers through dams. There is a long history of dams built

in Chhattisgarh beginning with the Maramsilli dam in the beginning of the twentieth century

followed by the Dudhawa dam, the Gangrel dam on the Mahanadi just after independence to

provide water for the Bhilai steel plant and the Hasdev Bango dam and in all of these people had

been displaced at the time of their construction without adequate compensation and

rehabilitation. So much so that some of the oustees of these dams sat in dharna on the road in the

hot summer of the year 2008 in Dhamtari district after all these years demanding just

rehabilitation that had been promised to them at the time of construction of these dams. The over

three thousand protestors were demanding land for land and sat in protest for six days but

eventually they did not get their demand. This phenomenon of displacement of people due to the

construction of large dams on rivers has intensified since the formation of the new state and now

whole rivers are being privatised. A few case studies are presented below

6.3.1 Sheonath River - The Sheonath river originates in Durg district and flows through

Raipur, Bilaspur and Janjgir districts before merging with the Mahanadi. The Sheonath was the

first river of the state to be privatised. The Madhya Pradesh Aydhyogik Kendra Vikas Nigam Ltd

(MPAKVN), Raipur, on June 26th

1996 received an application from M/s HEG Ltd of Durg

Industrial Centre, Borai stating that they were being supplied 12 lakh litres of water daily, but

they would need 24 lakh litres extra water daily. MPAKVN agreed to supply the extra water but

said that since there was less water in the Sheonath river between February and June, it could not

supply the same amount of water during that period. However, it proposed that HEG Ltd should

join with it to construct a dam, since it didn't have the necessary resources for building the dam

itself. After a series of meetings, a tender notice was issued for the construction of the dam on a

Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis. This tender made a provision for inclusion of

'tilting gates'. However, before the tender was released, on October 14, 1997, Kailash

Engineering Corporation of Rajnandgaon wrote to MPAKVN that they had developed automatic

tilting gates and they therefore held the patent. Clearly, the provision of tilting gates in the tender

meant that the water project could only be executed by Kailash Engineering or by some other

company with Kailash's consent. Soon after, MPAKVN handed over its entire infrastructure in

Borai, and assets worth Rs. 5 crore to Kailash Engineering, for a token sum of Re. 1, for

establishing the water supply project on BOOT basis. Radius Water Limited, the company set up

by Kailash Engineering to execute this project, was granted the contract on October 5th 1998. It

was to be effective till October 4th 2020. The company didn't conform to any of the standards

relating to minimum capital and experience mentioned in the tender. MPAKVN didn't take the

permission of, or even inform, the irrigation, revenue, or any other department of the government

before entering into the contract with Radius Water Limited. Construction on BOOT basis meant

that the company would be responsible for both construction and maintenance through its own

resources. But MPAKVN had handed over all its resources to Kailash Engineering and on top of

that had signed another contract which stated that Radius would receive Rs. 650 crores in the

form of a loan and Rs. 250 crores through equity shares, amounting to a total of Rs. 900 crores

which would be expended on this project. 3.6 million litres per day (mld) of water was being

supplied by MPAKVN from the industrial area of Borai to various factories. The day the water

supply project was handed over to Radius Water Ltd, the latter guaranteed MPAKVN that it

would supply 4 mld water immediately. Further, another contract for a period of 22 years was

43

made between Radius Water Ltd and MPAKVN that even if the latter didn't take 4 mld of water,

it had to compulsorily pay for it. The truth was that MPAKVN only needed 2.4 mld of water.

While MPAKVN paid Re. 1 per cubic metre for the Murethi project of the irrigation department

which is on the river Sheonath in Raipur district, it contracted to pay a whopping Rs. 15.02 per

cubic metre to Radius Water Ltd. The responsibility of building the dam on the Sheonath and

supplying water lay with Radius Water Ltd. By the time the whole process was completed, the

state of Chhattisgarh had come into being and MPAKVN became the Chhattisgarh State

Industrial Development Corporation (CSIDC). Radius Water Ltd. then began fencing in 22.7

kilometres of the Sheonath river upstream of the dam after the year 2000 and had taken

possession of thousands of square meters of land apart from the 70 hectares adjoining the river

bank at Borai. In the first year after taking over the resources of CSIDC for a paltry Re. 1, Radius

collected Rs. 15.12 lakh every month from the latter for the 4 mld of water it supplied under the

contract. Thus without investing a single rupee as capital, Radius received payments worth Rs

1,81,44,000 from the state government in the first year. Moreover, there were only two industries

in Borai and they required only 2.4 mld of water but the CSIDC was forced to pay for 4 mld of

water in accordance with the contract. Also, CSIDC received Rs 12 per 1,000 litres from the

industries to which it was supplying water, but it had contracted to pay Radius Water Ltd Rs

15.02 per 1,000 litres, leading to a loss of Rs 3.02 per 1,000 litres.

The Sheonath river is the main source of water for most of the surrounding villages

which was freely available to everyone earlier. But after Radius Water Ltd took possession of the

river, the villages situated on its banks upstream of Borai were prohibited from using its waters

for irrigation, fishing, bathing, or domestic use. Land on the banks of the river which was used

for cultivation, has been submerged following the storage of water in the dam. Thousands of

farmers in the surrounding villages were told that the river had been effectively sold to a private

company. The people said that the whole process took place without the conduct of a single

Gram Sabha meeting in any of the villages. Company officials moved from one village to

another and threatened the villagers. They also confiscated the pumps from villagers involved in

irrigation. The upstream villages of Mohlai, Khapri, Rasmara, Siloda, and Mahmara have been

badly affected. But the situation is worse for villages situated below the Borai dam. Farmers of

Chirbali, Nagpura, Malud, Jherni, Piparchhedi, and Belodi find that all the water is now stored in

the dam and the lower portion of the Sheonath has dried up. The people mobilised themselves

under the banner of the Nadi Ghati Morcha and conducted processions, roadblocks and protests

to draw attention to their plight.

These public protests prompted the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh to announce on

April 2nd

2003, that the contract with Radius Water Ltd. would be abrogated, that the issue would

be investigated and whoever was found guilty would be prosecuted. Rather than any action being

taken against Radius Water Ltd and the latter started filing cases against journalists who

published reports against it and also cases against the protestors. In the year 2003 the Public

Accounts Committee (PAC) of the legislative assembly of the State began investigating matters

relating to the privatisation of the Sheonath river. The PAC submitted its report to the legislative

assembly in March 2007. It came down heavily on MPAKVN for its removal of HEG Ltd. and

awarding of the contract on less beneficial terms and conditions to a private institution which

was inexperienced in the field of water supply. The PAC said further that "Contracting on BOOT

basis for water supply and dam construction has made the project irrelevant and purposeless. As

a result of which the government is facing losses from the first day of this project. Providing the

assets of water supply project to a private institution on a lease at a meagre token money of one

44

rupee is a conspiracy to put the government in a loss making situation" (PAC 2007). The PAC

further said that many changes made in the documents which the inspection committee unearthed

"can be categorised as criminal offences, previous instances of which can only be found in the

criminal world. That any government officer in cahoots with an industrialist can plan such a

conspiracy, is beyond reach of the imagination of committee." The PAC also made several

recommendations:

The contract and lease-deed executed between Radius Water Ltd and MPAKVN (or CSIDC)

should be declared null and void within a week of presenting the report. CSIDC should take back

ownership of all assets and the water supply project.

The then managing directors of MPAKVN and its Chief Engineer should be prosecuted for

conspiring to cause losses to the government and for handing over its assets to a private

institution by preparing false documents.

Criminal charges should be initiated against the Chief Executive Officer of Radius Water Ltd

for cooperating in this criminal conspiracy and for making profits by fraudulently harming the

government.

A probe should be initiated against those officers of MPAKVN and the state water resources

department whose involvement in this whole conspiracy is apparent, and strict disciplinary

action should be taken against them within one month.

The PAC also recommended that the responsibility of implementing the recommended

course of action should be given to an officer of Secretary level and that the government should

engage top class lawyers to safeguard its interests. But the recommendations weren't heeded and

the contract between Radius Water Ltd and CSIDC was not declared null and void. MLA

Ramchandra Sinhdev, who was a member of the PAC and is well acquainted with the matter,

said that it was like making a mockery of the Constitution. Nothing was more appalling than the

way the PAC report has been ignored. The main reason for this is that the contract has stiff

penalty clauses requiring the government to clear all outstanding loans, reimburse paid up equity

and also compensate the company for lost profits for the remaining years of the contract in case

of termination. However, if the government had the will it could initiate a re-negotiation of the

contract on better terms.

The Forum for Fact-finding Documentation and Advocacy (FFDA), an NGO from Raipur

has filed a Public interest Litigation (PIL) in the Chhattisgarh High Court challenging the

privatization of the river Sheonath. The Union of India, state of Chhattisgarh and Madhya

Pradesh and Radius Water Limited have been included as the respondents in the PIL. However,

the case is still pending in court and there have been no directives or reliefs provided to the

petitioner.

5.3.2 Other Instances - After the success of the Sheonath privatisation, a series of

privatisation contracts of other rivers have also taken place. The Kelo, Kurkut, Shabri, Kharun,

and Maand rivers have, one after the other, been handed over to private companies. The 95 km

long Kelo river passes through Raigarh and is its main source of water. In 1991, Jindal Steel and

Power Ltd set up a sponge iron factory in Raigarh with a capacity of producing 5 lakh tonnes of

iron every year. As it expanded, it set up a power plant too. In 1996 it made a bid to lift water

from the Kelo, but the government refused, saying that it would cause a drinking water shortage.

When JSPL persisted, the government caved in. Not only was JSPL allowed to take water from

45

the Kelo, it was also allowed to erect a stop dam that enabled it to lift 35,400 cubic metres of

water every day from the river. When the people of Bonda Tikra and other villages on the banks

of the river felt the impact of increasing water shortages, they began to protest. The farmers of

Bonda Tikra and Gudgahan villages were most affected because their lands had been taken over

earlier in the name of another irrigation project and the only way they could irrigate their fields

was from the waters of the Kelo river. The battle against JSPL resulted in marches,

demonstrations and rallies. Tribal farmers started a hunger strike and on January 26th

1998,

Satyabhama Saura died of hunger. Apart from the Kelo, the Kurkut river too has been affected

by various plants that JSPL has erected as mentioned earlier.

A large part of the Shabri river that flows through Dantewada district is under the

occupancy of Essar Steel Chhattisgarh Ltd. Essar has a pipeline network from Dantewada to the

port of Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. It sends iron-ore slurry through this pipeline using

the force of the water from the Shabri river. Industrial houses such as Monnet Ispat and Neco

Jaiswal have private dams on the Kharoon river in Raipur. Neco Jaiswal lifts 11.5 mld and

Monnet Ispat 7.5 mld water from the Kharoon river. Lafarge India possesses rights to 3 mld of

water from the Sheonath river. The NTPC power plant at Sipat in Bilaspur is being supplied

water from the Hasdev Bango dam. Finally there is the issue of over 30 villages in Dantewara

district and large tracts of virgin forests being submerged by the Polavaram dam to be built on

the river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh which is currently under litigation in the Supreme Court.

Here too there is the question of violation of the consultation provisions of PESA. The EIA

report is based on a study done in 1985 which has become obsolete due to later re-design of the

dam to make it larger. Even this faulty report has not been put to public scrutiny through a public

hearing (SANDRP 2005). The situation has been aggravated by the fact that most of the villagers

in the proposed submergence zone have been forced to flee due to the ongoing armed conflict

between the State forces and Salwa Judum on one side and the Maoist rebels on the other.

6.4 Mining

Mining of coal, iron ore, bauxite and limestone which are all crucial raw materials for

industrial development causes not only initial displacement but also later problems due to

pollution of land and water sources close to the mines. The Chhattisgarh government has earned

around Rs. 900 crores royalty on coal, bauxite and iron ores during fiscal 2007-08. The state had

earlier earned Rs. 832 crores royalty revenue in the fiscal year 2006-07 and Rs.737

crores in the fiscal year 2005-06. Korba district which is abundant in coal and bauxite topped the

list as the highest revenue contributor till December 2008 with Rs. 371 crores followed by

Korea and Raigarh districts with Rs. 94 crores and Rs 56 crores respectively (DPRCG 2009).

Yet when it comes to the status of the tribals who live near these mines the situation is

abominable. There are no in depth studies of the neglect of the development of these tribal areas

that are contiguous to these rich money spinners for the government and the industrial houses

which have the licenses. Now there are proposals for opening up more mines. Some of the major

problem areas are discussed below.

6.4.1 Rao Ghat - The Rao Ghat hills are a sacred area for the tribals of North Bastar

Today in Bastar the Bhoomkal Manjhi system of traditional governance is going on among the

Manjhi, Sarkar, Pargana, Chalkis, Permad, Gyata, Pujaris and Barelas according to their

primitive tradition. The hero of the Bhoomkal movement against the British in 1911, Gundadhar,

has been commemorated in the Raoghat hills and there is also a huge temple of Parwatraj and

46

Maoli Mata there. Raoghat is also known as Raodongri. There are many herbal plants on this hill

which has a huge forest cover. Consequently mining on this hill is against the primitive culture

of the tribes. In the month June 2007, a huge crowd of tribals demonstrated against the proposed

mining of Rao Ghat hill. However, because of the rich iron ore deposits there and public and

private sector steel companies like the Steel Authority of India Limited, Neco Jaiswal Steels

Limited, Monet Ispat Limited and Tata Steel are keen to acquire this land. The main obstacle for

them ironically is not the opposition of the tribals through their Gram Sabhas but the necessity of

getting a clearance from the MoEF for conversion of forest land for non-forest use and the

environmental clearance regarding the social and environmental impacts of the mining activities.

There is a piquant situation prevailing in the area at the moment. The businessmen in the two

towns of Narayangarh and Antagarh are vying with each other to get the township for the

proposed mines situated near their towns. The tribal people of the area on the other hand said

they have decided to oppose the setting up of the mines and are determined to fight against

giving up their lands and forests. However, till date there has been no notification from the

government regarding land acquisition and so there is no formal cause for action either at the

grassroots or legally.

6.4.2 Coal - Sarguja, Jashpur, Raigarh and Bilaspur districts are the coal zones in

Chhattisgarh. It is estimated that about 30,000 hectares of land have been leased out to the South

Eastern Coalfields Limited for coal mining causing massive displacement of tribals (George

2008). The demand for coal has gone up tremendously from both power and other industries.

Consequently there is going to be even more displacement and pollution on account of coal

mining. So the MoEF and the Ministry of Coal have agreed to reduce the delay in implementing

projects related to coal exploration and production. There has been a policy announcement that

areas having dense and moderately dense forest cover will not be available for coal mining (TOI

2009). According to the latest forest survey data of India, out of the total forest cover, 57% is

under dense and moderately dense canopy and 42% under open forests, defined as areas where

the canopy cover is between 10% and 40% (FSI 2008). But it is the areas with lesser forest cover

that are more densely populated and so the forestdwellers living there, who are mostly tribals

will be affected by this new policy. According to preliminary estimates, around 50,000 ha of

forest area will need to be diverted for coal exploration and production in the coming decade for

Coal India Ltd (TOI ibid). While the concern for the environment is being articulated there is no

concern being shown for the large numbers of people who are likely to be displaced as a

consequence of this increased coal mining activity.

6.4.3 Corruption in Coal Mining - Even though not directly related to violation of

PESA the corruption in the operations of the Southeastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) which is a

subsidiary of Coal India Limited and is headquartered in Bilaspur which runs all the coal mines

in Chhattisgarh deserves mention. The tribals are mostly the miners and are also the residents in

the areas near the mines and so are the most affected. There is an unholy nexus between the coal

mafia and the officials of SECL and the latter have refused to obey even the dictates of the Prime

Minister's Office (Amit and Gupta 2008). Congress Party Member of Parliament from Dhanbad

Chandra Sekhar Dubey had between August 13th

to December 13th

2007, written at least half a

dozen letters to the Prime Minister requesting him to streamline the functioning of SECL. The

PMO subsequently wrote to the Coal Ministry (MoC) to look into the affairs of the SECL, but on

all occasions it failed to get any active response from the MoC. Dubey in his letter had accused

vested interests in the SECL of defalcating crores of rupees every year in the name of

transportation of coal from mines to washeries and the reluctance of the SECL officials in

47

allowing new players to set up their coal washing units in the area. SECL could earn only Rs 800

crores as profit in the fiscal 2006-07, whereas it could have been more than Rs 30,000 crore if

the government had reduced this defalcation. The Prime Minister had advised that possibilities of

setting up new coal washeries in the area of the SECL should be explored to enhance the

production of washed coal. Alleging that the washery business in the area was monopolised by

one company, Dubey in his letter to the Prime Minister stated that the officials were in league

with this company Aryan Coal Beneficiations which monopolises the washery business. The

SECL was advised by the MoC to move the Chhattisgarh High Court for an interim order to

initiate suitable action for leasing of land to another firm Maruti Clean Coal and Power Limited

(MCCPL). The MoC had also clearly directed SECL to file an application before the Katghora

Civil Judge in Chhattisgarh to withdraw the status quo order passed by the said court. Angered

by the indifferent attitude of the SECL, the MCCPL Director Ramavtar Agrawal wrote a letter

to the PMO requesting the latter to expedite the execution of the lease deed as per the MoC's

earlier directives. However, Agrawal did not receive any response to his letter dated September

18, 2007, which also alleged that SECL was not moving the case in accordance with the

guidelines of the MoC. Now there is also a case registered by the CBI against SECL officials

and transporters for the heavy defalcation of funds through false vouchering leading to losses in

crores of rupees.

6.4.4 Jashpur - This district along with the neighboring Sarguja and Korea districts has

become the epicentre of new mining leases for a variety of minerals like coal and precious

stones. Notices have been served to hundreds of villagers regarding land acquisition without the

holding of either Gram Sabhas or EIA report appraisal public hearings. On 13th June 2009

hundreds of people organised under the banner of Jan Sangharsh Zila Samiti held a protest rally

in Kunkuri town in Jashpur against this indiscriminate issuance of mining and prospecting

licences to industrial houses without following the basic legal requirements of public

consultation. The main demand was that the provisions of PESA and the Environment Protection

Act which both make it mandatory to get the consent of the people should be strictly followed

before the granting of mining leases to companies.

6.4.5 Bailadila - The Bailadila Deposit No. 3 of the 40 kms long Bailadila iron ore lode

too has been awarded to Essar Limited for development in a new lease agreement with the

Chhattisgarh Government (Indiaprwire 2007) . The original NMDC mines at Bacheli developed

since 1968 had not only displaced tribals but also heavily polluted the river Shankhni and the

surrounding countryside thus affecting the livelihood of tribals residing nearby. Despite being

India's largest iron ore producer and exporter the NMDC had not been able to make operational

the mining lease of an area of 3,308.04 hectares in Bailadila Deposit No. 3 that it had got on Feb

3rd

1977 for a period of three decades. The lease expired on Feb 8th

2007. The development of

the third portion of the iron ore lode which is close to the town of Dantewara and in a forested

area peopled by tribals will also lead to further displacement and pollution. So far the tribals in

the villages which are most likely to be affected have not been issued any notices and neither

have any Gram Sabha meetings been held. Yet at some point of time in the future these lands

have to be acquired for mining. Apart from Essar Ltd there is the possibility of Tata Steel Ltd too

being given prospecting licenses in some of the other as yet unexploited deposits of the Bailadila

lode which has a total of 14 deposits to feed its proposed steel plant at Lohandiguda. Thus there

is every possibility that a major part of Dantewada district will become the epicentre of

displacement of tribals.

48

6.4.6 BALCO - The biggest Aluminium smelting company in Chhattisgarh is Bharat

Aluminium Company which is now owned by Sterlite Industries Limited which is a subsidiary of

the London Based Vedanta Group. This plant is situated in Korba district and has mining leases

for Bauxite in a number of villages. The mining area goes on increasing every year. Even though

initially when the plant was established PESA was not in operation, from 1997 onwards the

provisions of PESA had been incorporated into the Chhattisgarh Panchayati Raj Act and so it is

mandatory to take the permission of the Gram Sabha for any further extension of the mining

area. However, this is not being done and so here too PESA is being violated. There have been

people's protests from time to time but these have been put down by the use of repressive and

cooptive tactics by the company and the administration (George ibid).

6.5 Forests

The major source of problems for tribals in designated forest areas in Chhattisgarh is in

the areas protected under the Wildlife Protection Act. The creation of national parks and

sanctuaries involve displacement and curtailment of rights of tribals living in those reserve forest

areas so designated. Recently two wild life sanctuaries (WLS) in Chhattisgarh have been

designated as new tiger reserves as under -

Sl. No. Name of the proposed new Tiger Reserve District Area (in sq. kms)

1 Udanti and Sita Nadi Wildlife Sanctuaries Raipur 1580

2. Achanakmar Wildlife Sanctuary Bilaspur 963

Dozens of villages in both these sanctuaries are to be evacuated without proper

compensation and rehabilitation. The forest department staff have conducted meetings with the

tribal villagers, Baigas in the case of Achanakmar and Gonds in the case of Udanti and Sitanadi

and in both cases they have been told that they will be evacuated but they have not been shown

any alternative sites with adequate agricultural land of good quality and other provisions. Gram

Sabha meetings have not been held specifically to get their agreement regarding this project.

This has now become mandatory under the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and other Forest

Dwellers Recognition of Rights Act 2006 also. The Navrachna Samaj Sevi Sanstha and Adivasi

Mahapanchayat have tried to hold meetings with the affected villagers in the Achanakmar area

but without much success in terms of mobilisation. Similarly in the Sita Nadi WLS the NGO

Khoj is active along with the Nadi Ghati Morcha. Here the problem has been aggravated due to

the presence of Naxalite rebels who ambushed a team of 40 policemen killing 12 on May 10th

2009 near Madapoti village in Dhamtari district which is close to the sanctuary(Indian Express

2009). There was a movement within the sanctuary area against the proposed displacement but

after the Naxal attack there has been a police crackdown and some people of this movement have

been arrested on charges of aiding the Naxalites.

Incidentally the area near these sanctuaries have also been found to be rich in diamonds

and other precious stones (George op cit). Some preliminary exploratory mining has also taken

place. Thus there is the possibility of further displacement due to extensive mining in these areas

which will be done by disregarding the rules that prevent such activities within a 25 km radius of

protected areas. The PESA provisions will once again be violated and the interests of the tribals

will be jeopardised to secure the elite demand for tiger protecion and diamond jewellery.

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Another project that is coming up in forest areas in Chhattisgarh is that of elephant

reserves. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wild Life) (PCCF(WL)), Chhattisgarh

vide letter No. WL/736 dated 26.6.2006 has submitted a proposal to the Director, Project

Elephant, MoEF to include three suitable areas of the State as Elephant Reserves for managing

elephant populations and their habitats and reducing human-elephant conflicts. These three

proposed Elephant Reserves are: "Badalkhol - Manora", "Tamorpingla" and "Lemru" located in

the forest divisions of Jashpur, North Sarguja and Korba respectively. The Directorate of Project

Elephant, MoEf has constituted an expert team consisting of Shri. M.K.Appaya, Retd.

PCCF(WL), Karnataka, Member Project Elephant Steering Committee; Dr. Sushant Chowdhury,

Professor, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and Shri. A.N.Prasad, Inspector General of

Forests and Director, Project Elephant, MoEF to undertake the inspection of the sites and submit

their recommendations for necessary consideration of MoEF on the matter. Accordingly, the

team undertook site inspections in March 2007 and came out with a report favouring this

initiative. However, the tribal people residing in these areas who face the problem of elephant

incursions into their fields said that they have not been consulted in this matter. The already

established sanctuaries to be so developed are Samorsot WLS (430.36 sq.kms), Tamorpingla

WLS (608.52 sq.kms) and Badalkhol WLS (116.05 sq.kms) in the two districts of Sarguja and

Jashpur. An intervening area of 323.75 sq.kms between the sanctuaries will be targeted for

displacement for reducing human-elephant conflicts. The other Elephant Reserve to be declared

is Lemru covering Forest Ranges of Lemru, Balco, Kudmura and Korba in Korba district. These

ranges have not been declared as a sanctuary yet and so the whole process of land acquisition

will have to take place involving PESA. The forest ranges are characterized by high dense

cover, perennial water sources and moist riverine forest having 15-20 villages each.

Once again this proposal of setting up elephant reserves displays a blinkered approach to

environmental and social problems. The problem of human-elephant conflict has been created by

indiscriminate industrialisation which has led to encroachments into elephant habitats for mining

of coal and bauxite in Chhattisgarh and also in neighbouring Jharkhand. Apart from reducing

virgin forest areas, this has also reduced the availability of water in the streams and tanks leading

to elephants invading human habitations. Creation of elephant reserves won't solve the problem

as the humans that are going to be displaced from their traditional villages will still have to

depend on the same forests for their livelihoods in the absence of proper rehabilitation and

resettlement. It is pertinent to note that these elephant conservation plans which have been drawn

up with the help of animal conservationists do not discuss the ways in which the tribals to be

displaced are to be rehabilitated to their satisfaction (Indian Express 2006).

6.6 Biofuels

A major new area of concern for tribals is the stress on the production of biofuel from

jatropha to be grown on wastelands in Chhattisgarh. It has been propagated that unlike biofuels

made from crops such as soyabean and maize, jatropha is inedible and grows on non-arable land

and needs little water or care. Chhattisgarh has been projected by its government as the country's

biodiesel hub. The logic being peddled is that if 10 per cent of India's estimated 60 million

hectares of non-arable land is cultivated with jatropha or other biofuel yielding plants, the

country could produce 4-5 million tonnes of biodiesel a year, or about 10 per cent of current

diesel demand. Chhattisgarh hopes to generate 1,000 MW, or a third of the state's existing

generating capacity, from alternative energy sources. The state has planted 160,000 hectares of

jatropha. However, in a typically blinkered approach this has totally overlooked the fact that

50

these so called unarable lands are actually used for grazing purposes and supports the small

livestock animal husbandry which is a crucial part of the household economy of the poor and

especially the tribals. Moreover, as has now been proved after a few years of experimentation the

promise of jatropha providing good returns from cultivation on barren land without any inputs

and care has been belied (Handique 2007).

To show the possibilities of jatropha, Winrock International, a Delhi based NGO, in

2005 launched a pilot project in the village of Ranidhera, some 150 kms from Raipur. Winrock

supplied four generators powered on jatropha oil, along with machines to crush seeds and filter

the raw oil. Some 25,000 jatropha saplings were planted on roadsides. Today all 110 homes in

Ranidhera have electricity for four hours each evening (Misra, 2008). The people say that the

greatest benefit is that children can now study at night. Villagers pay Rs. 50 a month for two

lights which is comparable with the cost of a month's supply of kerosene. However, the whole

project is heavily subsidised by a grant from Department for International Development (DFID)

of the United Kingdom and has to source jatropha seeds from the market as the roadside

plantations do not produce enough.

Moreover jatropha is a very poisonous weed that is not eaten by livestock (Popham

2008). Many developed countries today spend huge sums of money to eliminate it. The plant is

actually native to tropical America and today occurs in most parts of India. In Chhattisgarh,

people use its wild varieties for making fences to keep out animals. Introducing this plant on

such a large scale in mono-cultures without conducting proper feasibility studies has

put Chhattisgarh's rich biodiversity and small livestock animal husbandry in serious jeopardy.

This scheme to use the common lands of the villages has been launched without any discussion

in the Gram Sabha and so is yet another violation of PESA which might in the end prove as

harmful as mining and other industrial activities.

6.7 Non-Nationalised Non-Timber Forest Produce and Trader-Moneylenders

An important feature of the tribal areas are the "Haats" or weekly village markets. Over

centuries these Haats have developed as places where tribals meet on a specific day of the week

for buying and selling of goods. A Haat is also a common place for interaction with family

friends and people of neighbouring villages. Unprocessed non-timber forest produce (NTFP) that

are not nationalised are major trading commodities in these Haats. These Haats provide the only

interface, however imperfect, between the tribal and the mainstream economy. For the

unsuspecting tribals, the Haat has for long been a place of exploitation. Small traders, moving

from one weekly Haat to another, take advantage of the innocence of the tribals, buy on their

own terms and outwit them in pricing, grading, weighing and counting.

The Haats are a buyers' market due to the extreme poverty of the tribals which forces

them to sell the produce at low prices that the traders offer. The small trader of the village Haat,

sells his goods to the trader at the Mandi or Up-mandi, the wholesale market, where they are

stored in cold storages. Later the NTFP are sold to bigger traders in the large cities in the lean

season. The small trader has a 50 per cent margin, while the mandi trader has a margin higher

than 100 per cent depending on the demand and supply situation in the country as a whole for

holding the stock in cold storage. The village tribals, most often children who spend weeks

collecting the produce from the forest, probably earn less than 10 per cent of the final price in the

big cities and even less in the case of export. The traders also act as moneylenders and use the

51

power provided by loans extended to the tribals to extract even more profit from them in the

dealings with regard to NTFP trading (Ganguly and Chaudhury, 2003).

PESA specifically provides for the control of trade in non-nationalised NTFP and the

regulation of the Haats in general as also the practice of moneylending by the Gram Sabha in

Scheduled Areas in particular. However, nowhere in Chhattisgarh are these powerful provisions

being implemented. Thus, for better returns to the tribals the following steps should be taken -

a. NTFPs should be properly defined and all NTFPs, including the nationalised ones, should

be handed over to the Gram Sabha. For management of certain high revenue earning

NTFPs like Tendu Leaf, Sal seed, Harra, etc., tribal co-operatives should be set up. A

mutually agreed plan of action needs to be developed at the Gram Sabha. Necessary

amendments in forest laws and rules and other related statutes need to be carried out to

clear ambiguities in the definition of NTFPs and to outline ownership, control and

management functions and to fix duties and responsibilities of different stakeholders.

b. The capacity of the Gram Sabha to own, control and manage NTFPs should be built up.

They should be supported adequately to create an interface with different agencies - both

government and private - for control, management and trade of NTFPs. Transfer of

ownership rights to the Gram Sabha doesn't mean that the forest department ceases to

have a role. They should constantly help the Gram Sabha by providing trade-related

information to them and help in marketing arrangements, collection procedures etc.

c. High transaction and later storage costs related to the trade of NTFPs at Haats denies the

tribals a remunerative price. Thus, it is imperative that the provisions of PESA are

implemented and local NGOs and the government agencies involved in the procurement

of the nationalised NTFPs, together strengthen the Gram Sabhas to market their produce

collectively. Pre-processing of NTFP at the village or Haat level with the use of simple

machines should be encouraged once again under the supervision of the Gram Sabha. The

Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED),

which is the umbrella organisation in this regard, should take an active role in training

and supporting a federation of NTFP collection and processing cooperatives of the tribals

in Chhattisgarh.

6.8 Maoist Movement and Salwa Judum

The People’s War Group which has now renamed itself as the CPI (Maoist) has been

entrenched in the tribal districts of south Chhattisgarh and especially in Dantewara for over two

decades now. They were also there earlier in the northern districts in strength for some time but

currently they are not there anymore. Parts of Dantewara district, specifically the Abujhmarh

forest area, which is unsurveyed to this day, have largely passed out of the control of the state

administration. As in some other states in India, the growth of Maoist influence is largely

attributable to the development deficit arising from the neglect of tribal interests and aspirations

by the formal political and administrative system (Planning Commission 2008). Around 1980,

CPI (People’s War Group) started an organization in the area of present-day Dantewada district,

called the Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan (DAKMS). Also important is the

creation of Sanghams in villages. These were intended to gradually replace the traditional

structures of authority at the village level, articulate issues of the village like land, access to

forests, fair wages and higher prices for NFTP and settle disputes. By 2000, when the state of

52

Chhattisgarh was created, the CPI (Maoist)] had created substantial bases in the forest areas of

Bastar, Kanker, and Dantewada which were under the control of the Janathana Sarkar set up by

them (CPJC 2007).

This situation was obviously not to the liking of the government and so gradually security

forces began to be sent to fight the Maoists and regain control of the area from them. The need to

do so became even more urgent in the new millennium as the rich iron ore in the area grew in

value due to the shortage of iron ore elsewhere and many industrial houses signed MoUs with the

Chhattisgarh government for opening mines and setting up steel plants in Dantewara. In the

summer of 2005, news reports started appearing of a ‘spontaneous’, ‘self-initiated’, ‘people’s

movement’ against the Maoists, known as the Salwa Judum. A literal translation of this Gondi

term, is not the government preferred ‘peace campaign’, but ‘purification hunt’. The district

administration claims people in some 200 villages began mobilizing against the Maoists, going

on processions and holding meetings. The people were apparently upset with the Maoist strike

call on collecting Tendu leaves and their opposition to development works like road construction

and grain levies. However, this characterisation of the Salwa Judum is inaccurate. The fact is that

the Salwa Judum is being led by sections of local elites, contractors and traders, that it is

officially part of anti-naxal initiatives, and that it is being actively supported by the State and

Central Governments.

The net result of the armed confrontation between the Maoists and the Salwa Judum is

that innocent tribals in the deep forests have suffered. They have either been displaced and

forced to live in camps on the roadside or they have fled into the neighbouring states of Andhra

Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra so as to escape the wanton killings and insecurity that is

prevailing in their homeland. Thus in a sense this too is a violation of PESA as the government

in its bid to tackle the armed Maoists has displaced the villagers without giving them an option to

continue in their villages. Such is the antipathy of both the Maoists and the government to the

villagers that they have actively opposed any attempt to rehabilitate them back in the villages.

The NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) tried to initiate a process by which the people

who had fled to Andhra Pradesh could come back and begin living in their villages once again.

The process was started in 2008-09 in Nendra village and was sought to be extended to other

villages. However, the Maoists threatened the workers of the Ashram and they had to withdraw

even though the villagers stayed on with material support from the Ashram. In 2009-10 when the

VCA tried to extend this experiment once again to other villages, both the government through

its police and the Maoists created many obstacles. Finally, the government razed the Ashram

premises in the village of Kanwalnar near Dantewara town to the ground stating that it was built

on government land. The land in fact was village common land and had been given free on lease

to the Ashram by the Gram Sabha by a resolution to conduct its activities. However, the district

administration overruled this resolution of the Gram Sabha and passed an order for the

demolition of the VCA premises on 17th May 2009. This once again demonstrates the total

neglect of the PESA provisions and devaluation of the tribal Gram Sabha by the government.

The attack on the VCA is symptomatic of the administration in Chhattisgarh which is

bent on promoting industrialisation at the cost of the environment and tribal livelihoods.

Dantewada is rich in mineral resources and is being eyed by the biggest corporations in India and

abroad for the setting up of industrial plants. Kawalnar village where the VCA was

headquartered has been singled out as the site for the setting up of the washery and township for

the Bailadila Deposit 3 mines and so the people there are slated to be displaced. Moreover, the

53

opposition of the VCA to the Salwa Judum which extends to collecting data and testimonies in

support of the petition filed against it in the Supreme Court too has put it in the bad books of the

Government (Kumar 2009). Consequently the government does not want the VCA or any other

NGO to work in the area. Similarly the Maoists too would not like an NGO professing Gandhian

ideals to be influential among the tribals because they want to mould them in their own ideology

of armed revolution.

7. Remedial Action

The above review has clearly established that PESA has not been implemented properly

in Chhattisgarh and has instead been violated continuously so as to promote mining,

industrialisation and wildlife protection to the detriment of the interests of the tribal population

and the environment. Hence, there is a need to ensure better compliance with not only PESA but

also allied statutes such as the Environment Protection Act and the National Rehabilitation

Policy which together can ensure a more just dispensation for the tribals in the state. To this end

some suggestions are being made here regarding the strengthening of the process of consultation

with the people to bring about a truly democratic dispensation that is more amenable to the

tribals and in accordance with the spirit of PESA and the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution

which stipulates that all laws, policies and governance in tribal areas should accord with the

cultural and livelihood interests of the tribals. The Environment Protection Act is discussed first,

followed by the Rehabilitation Policy and finally the National Rural Employment Guarantee

Scheme is explored as the single most important legal and policy initiative for the

implementation of PESA.

7.1. Environment Protection Act

The two most important laws for the protection of the environment in India are the Forest

(Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980 and the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), 1986.

The MoEF which is supposed to administer the implementation of these acts impartially, has

instead acted in a manner that is biased towards industrial development. Since 1980, the ministry

has allowed the diversion of 1,140,176 ha of forest land for non-forest use under FCA.

Clearances for 3,11,220 ha, a quarter of all clearances since 1980, have been granted after 2003.

Permission has been granted for the establishment of roads, industries, dams, mines and other

developmental activities. The ministry has also granted clearances under EPA with similar

alacrity by allowing the setting up of 4,016 projects between 1986 and 2006 (Kohli and Menon

2008). At the same time the MoEF has opposed the granting of leasehold rights to tribals who

have been cultivating forest land for generations and has effectively sabotaged the

implementation of the STOFDA (CSD 2009).

The EIA notification passed in 1994 gave teeth to the EPA making mandatory public EIA

reports for environmental clearances for developmental projects. In 1997 this was amended to

include the holding of public hearings were the EIA reports were to be scrutinised by the affected

people. However, all these provisions remained only on paper and in March 2005, the Supreme

Court ordered the closure of all units operating without environmental clearances in response to a

petition filed before it. However, soon after, in July 2005, the MoEF introduced a procedure for

seeking temporary working permissions and post-facto clearances through an amendment to

the EIA notification which as has been detailed above was promptly utilised by JSPL for its

power plant in Raigarh district. EIA procedures were further amended in 2006 but none of the

54

suggestions advanced by NGOs and activists to improve the regulatory process and enhance its

transparency, were taken into consideration. Instead, the reforms focused on speedy clearances.

Neither does the MoEF peform its monitoring function after giving these clearances to see

whether the conditions imposed are being adhered to or not due to a severe shortage of staff and

infrastructure (Chouhan, 2009). Despite this lax governance the industrial lobby wants even less

regulation and as a consequence an expert group consisting of bureacrats and industry

representatives was set up to see how clearances could be speeded up further. The

recommendations of this group have sought to further dilute the public hearing provision and the

right of affected people to voice their opposition to the deleterious environmental and social

aspects of these projects (GoI, 2008). This has prompted the MoEF to come up with yet another

draft EIA ruling which further dilutes its provisions in favour of industrialists at the cost of the

environment and the affected people.

Taking into consideration this sorry state of affairs which prevails all over the country

and especially in Chhattisgarh the guidelines for EIA set out by the United Nations Environment

Programme should be incorporated in an amended EIA notification so as to ensure greater

transparency in environmental governance and sustainability and equity in development (UNEP

2002). These guidelines are a little technical in nature but have been mentioned here in detail

because there needs to be a greater awareness among policy makers and activists regarding the

procedure for EIA considering that it is crucial to the safeguarding of the interests not only of the

project affected persons but also the country as a whole. The guidelines are as follows -

The criteria for acceptable and unacceptable impact should be clearly defined and

standards for these criteria determined as under:

a) A risk standard for acceptable carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic toxic risks,

b) Allowable ecological footprint (eco-footprint) standard which means that the maximum

ecological resources that can be utilised for a particular project without affecting the

sustainability of local and global eco-systems must be specified,

c) An area vulnerability standard,

d) A socio-economic conflict potential standard,

e) An allowable cost to environment standard.

f) Limit ribbon development along the roads leading to the proposed project site so as to

minimise further social and environmental impacts.

An independent Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (EIAA) should be set up as

the nodal agency to evaluate the EIAs that are submitted to the MoEF. The EIAA should be an

autonomous body with the same powers as the Election Commission, with concomitant

accountability to discharge its duties with due diligence and within timeframes defined by the

EPA Act/ Rules, in particular with regard to taking decisions on proposed projects.

Detailed guidelines for conducting EIAs and for project appraisal should be prepared by a

committee constituted specifically for this purpose by the EIAA and translated into all Indian

languages recognized by the Indian Constitution and also dialects which are spoken by tribals.

These guidelines, besides having methods for modeling for pollutant transport through different

pathways and predicting impacts on various types of receptors, shall also contain methods for

doing risk analysis, eco-footprinting, vulnerability assessment and mapping, conflict analysis,

environmental costing, central place hierarchization which analyses the extent to which the

project site has centralised resource use and development in the area, and gravity modeling

55

which analyses the pulls on population flow that the project site exerts on surrounding areas to

ensure compliance with impact criteria.

The potentially affected people of a proposed project should be provided with technical

support to do the EIA and submit it under their signatures to the EIAA and other regulatory

authorities. Technical portions of the EIA may be sub-contracted to consultants recognized by

EIAA but their work will be supervised by the persons who are to be affected by the

project. Special arrangements to engage NGOs and CSOs in the process should be made in case

of tribal populations being affected by the project. The project proponent should provide all

necessary information and non-monetary assistance for doing the EIA.

The power to grant and revoke the Consent for Operation (CfO) for existing facilities

shall be handed over to local self governments - Panchayat Raj Samitis, Zilla Parishads,

municipalities and municipal corporations in a time bound manner once they have been

technically empowered. The power to grant and revoke the Consent for Establishment (CfE) for

proposed projects facilities should also be handed over to local self-governments five years after

powers for granting or revoking the CfO has been transferred to them.

The project proponent should identify and provide details for a minimum of at least two

distinct alternate candidate sites for consideration by regulatory authorities. The EIAA may

constitute a committee to identify and demarcate greenfield sites all over the country for different

types of projects facilities within the next 5 years that meet the standards for environmental

clearance. Guidelines for site selection should be prepared by an EIAA constituted committee,

and translated into all languages recognized by the Indian Constitution. Standardized base terms

of reference (ToR) for doing EIAs may be prepared by the EIAA. Depending on site conditions,

the EIAA may specify additional terms for specific projects.

Public hearings shall be open to all. No waiver of public hearings shall be permitted

under any circumstance. Certain proposed projects like oil refineries (due to product transport),

may have impacts at locations far from the plant site. To allow non-locals who may be affected

by such projects to be a part of the public consultation process, the EIAA shall advertise details

of the proposed project on the internet, and at least in one national daily newspaper, and at least

in one regional daily newspaper in each state in which the proposed project may have an impact

and provide six weeks for the public hearing and for public comments to be received. All

statements made in the public hearing and public consultation process should be recorded and

appended to the EIA.

A necessary, though not sufficient condition, for the grant of prior environmental

clearance for a proposed project or the expansion of an existing one, should be that it must not

violate acceptable impact criteria and other standards that have been decided by the EIAA. One

of the compliance conditions that the EIAA shall put on local self-government in whose

jurisdiction the facility is located, will be site-specific conditions.

The EIAA, with the help of Pollution Control Boards, should identify and publish every

two years for each industry the best available technologies, materials and practices that help

minimize environmental impacts. Environmental clearance conditions for proposed projects

should specify only such technologies, materials and practices, as identified, unless the EIA

report for a proposed project is able to identify better technologies, materials and practices that

improve environmental protection.

56

The environmental clearance for a proposed project should be obtained prior to

finalization of the detailed project report and financial closure for the project. The validity of a

prior environmental clearance should be for two years for all projects and a fresh application for

clearance should be made upon the expiry of this prior clearance.

One of the mandatory compliance conditions for all projects should be the reporting of

annual quantities of all pollutant emissions (including greenhouse gases and hazardous

substances) - gaseous, liquid, solid (including sludge), biological, radiological [released to air,

water (surface and groundwater)], and soil (surface and by injection into sub-surface soils), both

onsite and offsite (locations to be reported). The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) shall

maintain a register of Pollutants and Hazardous Substances Release Inventory (PHSRI). The

facility's CfO shall be revoked if emissions exceed those specified in its environmental

clearance, CfE and CfO.

A project attributable health risk, its ecological footprint, actual conflict that it has

caused, a computation of the environmental costs that it has externalised on to society and central

place hierarchy and gravity model studies should be done once every two years by the impacted

community with appropriate technical help from designated agencies funded by the MoEF. The

facility's environment clearance, CfO should be revoked if these indices indicate any undue

impact on the environment or exceed the standards.

The EIAA should set up a monitoring cell that will monitor compliance of conditions put

on all facilities that have been granted environmental clearances. Non-compliance of conditions

shall attract action against the offending facility, including revocation of its environmental

clearance. This is the most important recommendation as at present the MoEF and the pollution

control boards at the centre and the states are not doing this properly mainly due to staff and

infrastructure constraints.

A certification process for consultants who wish to assist affected communities to

conduct EIAs should be instituted. The certification may be renewed every five years on proof of

fulfillment of certificate-issue conditions. Continuing education and orientation on

environmental impact assessment should be provided by educational institutions and other

professional bodies to all those involved in conducting, appraising or just understanding EIAs -

local self governments, consultants, regulatory authorities, non-government organizations, trade

unions, industry, associations and the general public.

Defining criteria for acceptable or unacceptable impact will decrease the subjectivity of

decision-making by regulatory authorities. The proposed project will be unacceptable if any of

the following standards are not met:

a) Risk (to human health) standard: The standard may be set for carcinogenic and

non-carcinogenic risks posed by human activity. It may be defined as not exceeding

an additional lifetime cancer risk of one in a million chance for carcinogenic agents,

and not exceeding a hazard index (HI - ratio of exposure to toxic concentration of an

agent to its reference concentration that is known to be the maximum concentration

that causes no health effects) of one for non-carcinogenic agents, respectively, for

exposures of anthropogenic origin, and other than of background origin. While

computing health risk at a site, the cumulative risk due to all existing exposures,

except due to background ones, must be added to the risks posed by proposed facility,

and the cumulative risk may not exceed the defined standard.

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b) Allowable ecological footprint standard: Eco-footprint analysis measures the ratio of

human activity in a given area to its capacity to sustain it, both factors expressed in

land units (land required for agriculture and forest produce, built up areas, power

generation, carbon sequestration to compensate for the carbon emissions from the

project, water area required for fisheries, area required for biodiversity, etc). The

allowable eco-footprint standard may be defined as the ratio of the eco-footprint of all

industry and services in an area to the bio-capacity of that area (both factors being

expressed in land units).

c) Area vulnerability standard: Area vulnerability analysis identifies, measures and maps the

general vulnerability of receptors to external impingements arising from the project.

For example sections of the population of differing economic, social, age, gender and

genetic factors will be affected differently due to impacts on livelihoods (crops,

fishing, etc), forests and biodiversity and monuments of an area due to external

impingement of various types and magnitudes. The specific vulnerability of some or

all these receptors to the specific impingement that the proposed project will make on

them has to be taken into consideration. For example if an area where a water-

polluting industry is proposed, has drinking water lakes, the specific vulnerability of

the area to the proposed project will be of particular importance. The standard will

define a general vulnerability threshold for an area and a specific vulnerability

threshold (for a proposed project), both of which are to be met independently.

d) Conflict potential standard:. Conflict analysis measures the potential conflicts that a

project may cause, in combination with other activity, in an area. A proposed project

facility may not exceed the conflict potential standard that it may cause along with

other projects existing in the area.

e) Environmental cost standard: Environmental impact costing puts an economic value to

the impact of a project on the environment and on human health. A proposed project

may not exceed an environmental cost standard. This standard in turn will have to be

below a determined fraction of the project cost at current value.

EIAs must mandatorily do risk and conflict assessment, area vulnerability analysis and

vulnerability assessment and mapping of the impacted area, ecological footprint analysis for the

proposed project, and central place hierarchization and gravity modeling and assess whether the

proposed project meets the required standards after considering the contribution of other

anthropogenic activity. Panchayat Raj Samitis, Zilla Parishads, municipalities and municipal

corporations may compute the bio-capacities and do general vulnerability analysis and mapping

for their villages and towns every two years, after receiving training for doing them. In addition,

site-specific conditions using central place theory (central place hierarchization and gravity

modeling) shall be imposed on the local self-government in whose jurisdiction the proposed

project is located. The local self-government shall comply with these conditions.

Only with such a decentralisation of the EIA and environmental monitoring process

involving extensive technical empowerment of local bodies and communities can the provisions

of PESA be implemented in the face of increasing modern industrial development. The ongoing

popular movements in Chhattisgarh for the implementation of PESA, EPA and EIA rules are

severely handicapped at present due to a lack of knowledge of the highly technical aspects of

environmental laws and regulations.

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7.2 Rehabilitation and Resettlement

The sorry manner in which people displaced due to development projects, especially the

tribals, have been rehabilitated and resettled so far is one of the main reasons for the burgeoning

opposition to such projects at a time when alternative free land and sustainable livelihoods are

hard to come by (Action Aid, Indian Social Institute and Laya op cit). The problems have arisen

mainly due to the anti-people nature of the colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894 and the poorly

conceived Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) policies of the Central and State

Governments. Matters have now been compounded by the pendency in parliament of two bills -

one to amend the Land Acquisition Act and the other to enact a Rehabilitation and Resettlement

Act (Sakhuja 2008). The Land Acquisition bill enlarges the concept of public purpose to include

even mines and then provides for the government stepping in to acquire lands for private parties.

The Rehabilitation and Resettlement bill does not provide for land for land to displaced people

and also sets up a special appelate tribunal for hearing of grievances and deprives affected

persons the right of judicial remedy in courts. These bills have been currently held up due to the

opposition of some partners in the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the

Centre. However, sooner or later they are likely to be enacted.

Thus, there is a need for a proper R&R Policy for Project Affected Persons (PAP) if the

kind of injustice that has been meted out to them so far in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere is to be

avoided in future. One such policy had been formulated by the National Alliance of People's

Movements and was submitted to the National Advisory Council of the first UPA Government in

2005 (NAC 2005). The salient features of this policy are as follows

7.2.1 Infrastructural Facilities

Wherever en-masse resettlement of populations after land acquisition is involved good

infrastructural facilities and basic minimum amenities are to be provided at the cost of the

acquiring agency (AA) to ensure that the resettled population in the new village or colony can

secure for themselves a reasonable standard of community life and can minimise the trauma

involved in displacement. The new resettlement sites must be reasonably habitable or be made

reasonably habitable and they should be well planned in all respects. They should have the

following facilities and resources as appropriate :

1. Roads within the resettled villages and an all weather road link to the nearest pucca road,

passages and easement rights for all the resettled families be adequately arranged.

2. Proper drainage as well as sanitation facilities executed before physical resettlement.

3. One or more assured sources of safe drinking water for each group of 25 families settled

in a pocket has to be ensured, capable of yielding enough water to meet the demand of at

least six litres per capita per day (lpcd) of safe drinking water and 40 lpcd of water for

other purposes.

4. Drinking water facilities for cattle through a pond/ borewell/ well with a trough.

5. Grazing land as per proportion acceptable in the state.

6. Pattas for housing plots and recognition as a revenue village or a settlement with a

panchayat or local self-government committee.

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7. Necessary plantation on common lands must be taken up under social forestry or agro-

forestry schemes financed by various Ministries of the Government so as to provide a

good environment to the resettlement site.

8. A reasonable number of Fair Price shops must be set up.

9. A Panchayat Office must be established in each new settlement.

10. One Primary Agricultural Co-operative Credit Society with facility for selling essential

consumer articles in every resettled village;

11. Village level Post Offices with facilities for opening saving accounts must be set up.

12. Appropriate seed-cum-fertilizer storages must be set up.

13. Efforts must be made to provide basic irrigation facilities to the agricultural land

allocated to the resettled families.

14. Institutional arrangements for training for employment and easy access to financial

institutions for availing of financial assistance must be made.

15. Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) must be immediately brought under operation in the

newly settled villages/colonies above. Institutions such as schools, supplemental nutrition

and health centers and community centers must be controlled and managed through some

local organization which either already exists or is newly formed, like the Gram Sabha or

Gram Panchayat, or Mahila Mandal);

16. All resettled families living below the poverty line receiving land in the resettled area for

agricultural purpose should also get free supply of seeds and irrigation from any public

source for cultivation of suitable crops free of cost for the first year and on loan basis for

subsequent two years.

17. All new villages established for resettlement of the PAPs shall be provided with suitable

transport facility which must include public transport facilities through local bus services

with the nearby growth centers and urban localities.

18. Burial and/ or cremation ground, depending on the castes and communities being

rehabilitated.

19. Facilities for sanitation, including individual toilet points.

20. Individual single electric connections (or connection through non-conventional sources of

energy like solar energy) for each household and for public lighting.

21. Sub health center within two kilometre range.

22. Primary Health Centre for each group of 20,000 population.

23. Playground for children.

24. One community center for every 500 families.

25. Places of worship and chowpal/tree platform for every 50 families for community

assembly.

26. Separate land must be earmarked for traditional tribal institutions.

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27. Grazing ground and common land for food and fodder, especially in the case of biomass

dependent communities.

28. The forest dweller families must be provided, where possible, with their traditional rights

on NTFP and common property resources, if available close to the new place of

settlement. In case such families can continue their access or entry to such forest or

common property in the area close to the place of eviction, they must continue to enjoy

their earlier rights to the aforesaid sources of livelihood.

29. The beneficiaries of resettled area, irrespective of caste, creed, religion or economic

status, must be allowed to construct for themselves all other facilities essential for

community life by taking up suitable projects for which finances are available from

government schemes.

30. Appropriate security arrangements must be provided for the settlement if needed.

7.2.2 Agricultural Land

1. Any displaced person/ family engaged primarily in agricultural work, either as worker,

tenant or owner with or without legal title must be allotted agricultural land of two standard

hectares, if he or she exercises such an option. The title rights will be non-alienable.

Explanation 1: One standard hectare shall mean one hectare of agricultural land irrigated out

of any public irrigation scheme, 1.25 hectare of agricultural land irrigated/ irrigable from any

private source/ private or personal irrigation project, 1.5 hectare of agricultural land if the

land is non-irrigated and non-irrigable but duly rainfed, 2 hectares if the land allotted is

cultivable but non-irrigable plain land and 3 hectares if the land offered is wasteland, hilly

land, forest land, dry land in arid zone which require land development works for initiation of

cultivation, but is capable of being made cultivable.

Explanation 2 : Every major male adult member, dependent upon the landholding, jointly

or separately, and adult female member when unmarried, widowed or divorced, would be

considered as a separate family unit for all purposes of land allotment.

2. Allotment of irrigated land : The PAPs will have the first right to the land in the command

areas of irrigation projects for which they have been displaced. To make such land available,

the AA should acquire up to 50 percent of land in excess of 2 standard hectares from each

land holder benefiting from the new irrigation facilities in the command area of the irrigation

project. Consolidation of holdings would have to be undertaken, in such a way as to ensure

that PAPs from a village are allotted land in close proximity. In case the PAP agriculturist

chooses to be allotted land outside the command area, this option must be respected and the

cost of land development and irrigation of irrigable land allotted under the scheme would be

borne by the acquiring authority.

Explanation : It may be stressed that irrigated or at least irrigable land must be the rule, and

other categories only the exception where irrigated or irrigable land is impossible, the AA

shall bear the cost of organizing irrigation in the allotted land. A specific contract must be

signed by the AA with each individual family or group to provide the same within the

prescribed period. The allottee of land in the resettled area shall be provided with proper

rights and title on land, free from all encumbrances, following the land demarcation and

allotment procedure as per the Land Revenue Code.

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3. Agricultural land for rehabilitation must be allotted in the joint name of husband and wife

except in the case of single parent households, or unmarried adult individuals.

4. Obligation of AA to bear the cost of development of culturable waste land: If land allotted

is wasteland, undulated, hilly, rocky, degraded, cost for improvement, development,

reclamation of the land including construction of contour bunds or other watershed

development schemes shall be borne by the Project Implementing Agency (PIA) and

implemented within a period not exceeding two years from the date of allotment of such

land, again based on a specific contract.

5. Allotment of land to displaced allottees of government land: The recipients of the

government agricultural land or Gram Sabha agricultural land, if displaced, shall be entitled

to the same rights as a land-owner, even if such allottee did not have physical possession,

appropriate record or document to prove such possession.

6. AA to bear stamp duty and other fees: The cost of registration, stamp duty and other fees,

if any, for providing legal documents on land to the allottees shall be borne by the AA.

7. Payment of cost for initial cultivation of allotted land: The AA shall provide cost of

ploughing, seeds and fertilizers in the first year of cultivation of the allotted land. In the

second and third years, cost of cultivation must be loaned to such allottee of land by the AA

recoverable within next five years as single installment per annum free from any interest.

Provided that for land which requires development in order to become cultivable, the

assistance grant must continue until the development work is in progress. In all of these,

cash payment must be kept to the minimum. Service centers/ guilds must be established,

wherever possible.

8. Non-titled cultivators on forest lands: Forest dwellers, cultivating forest lands from any

date prior to 13th December 2005 (or as per the provisions of Scheduled Tribes and Other

Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, shall be considered as

owners of such land for purposes of compensation and allotment of land in lieu of their land.

9. Other encroachers: All encroachers of Government land for a period of five years or more

before the date of acquisition of land, who are otherwise landless or marginal farmers,

primarily dependent on cultivation for their livelihoods, shall be treated as owners of the land

for the purpose of R&R. They shall also be entitled to allotment of land in lieu of the

encroached land surrendered by them.

7.2.3 Employment Opportunities

1. At least one person from every project affected family will be given employment by the

project.

Explanation 1 - In the first place, all unskilled and semi-skilled direct employment in the

project must always go to a PAP with a mandatory preference, as long as any such positions

are available for employment. Those with appropriate qualifications must also be given first

priority for skilled positions. A priority list of eligible PAPs must be prepared and published

along with the criteria and procedure for selection and objections heard before these are

finalized by a State Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) set up for this purpose. The priority list

must begin with those who are most vulnerable - landless labourers and artisans who have

lost their livelihood. After that, landholders will be listed on a descending scale, with a lower

priority for those with larger holdings. In recruitment to regular jobs in the project preference

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shall be given to those losing their source of livelihood, residents of the zone, of the district

and of the state in that order. Many projects, including public sector units in the past, have

attempted to evade this responsibility by giving even many such on-going unskilled or

semiskilled tasks which could adequately be implemented by PAPs (eg., horticulture) to

contractors. This must not be permitted as long as there are any eligible PAPs.

Explanation 2 - A second problem frequently encountered is that PAPs are rejected because

they are said to lack the skills required. Since all such projects have long gestation periods,

therefore the SRA with the assistance of the state government must systematically ensure full

literacy as well as the creation of necessary skills to render the PAPs eligible for employment

for semi-skilled positions and for those with sufficient educational qualifications for skilled

positions. Even those private enterprises, which benefit from the project would be charged in

the same manner with responsibility for providing skills and jobs to such people. This

systematic skill development is primarily the responsibility of the AA.

2. For the above provision to be operationalised, from the conceptualization of the project

plan itself, the SRA must plan multi-dimensional literacy, educational and training

programmes and institutions for the people likely to be affected. The training must focus also

on developing such traditional occupations/ skills, which can be carried on and be useful in

the areas of resettlement. The entire objective would be to enable the PAPs to have

preferential access to the employment opportunities likely to be generated by the project. The

entire programme must be planned with high professionalism well in advance and must be

based on prior studies of the existing skills, experience, training, competence and aptitudes of

the people likely to be affected so that they can easily switch over or be absorbed in new

employment. Even after displacement and resettlement, there must be major efforts to run

training programmes to provide modern skills to the resettled people to ready them for their

new employment. This training programme is not meant merely for preparing for jobs or

services but also for self-employment.

3. Provision of casual and manual wage employment shall not be considered as an alternate

source of livelihood or employment in the case of affected persons. Moreover, all such

employment shall be co-operativised so as to instill a sense of dignity amongst the

participants. Accordingly, all possible tasks in the project will be assigned to cooperatives

or groups (even unregistered) of workers, which at present are being generally executed

through contractors and middlemen.

4. In all mining projects, preference in grant of lease etc.will be given to co-operative bodies

comprising (i) the Gram Sabhas of the likely zone of influence, (ii) persons owning mineral

bearing lands, (iii) workers and (iv) entrepreneurs providing capital and technical know how.

The share of the members of the concerned Gram Sabhas in these cooperatives shall not be

less than fifty percent.

5. The PIA in consultation with the SRA will also prepare a broad outline of a perspective

plan for reclamation of the mining areas, and for land use and development after the mining

operations are over. All such lands after development will belong to the community

comprising the concerned Gram Sabhas. The same must be assigned to the erstwhile land

owners or landless labourers, subject to the condition that the economic activity thereon will

be exclusively through personal labour of the assignee and his family and that the land shall

not be transferable except through inheritance. A detailed scheme on the above lines will be

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prepared by the AA in consultation with the Gram Sabhas at least two years in advance of the

closure of a mine area or any part thereof.

7.2.4 One Time Grant

A one-time rehabilitation grant for loss of livelihood will be provided to every adult member

of the eligible displaced family, equivalent to 750 days of minimum wages admissible for

unskilled workers. This is provided to cover a gestation period of around three years to

enable the family to establish a new livelihood. This amount will be placed in a bank account

in fixed deposit in the joint name of male and female heads of household. The interest may

be freely used for consumption purposes but the capital can only used for purchase of

productive assets or in other ways connected with the establishment of secured livelihoods.

7.2.5 Homesteads

All displaced families from the rural as well as urban communities shall be provided with the

following benefits of R&R packages :

1. The rehabilitation package will include allotment of homestead land of the quantum

specified, as well as constructed dwelling of such standard and with such number of rooms as

has been specified separately for rural and urban households, as per stipulations provided

below. In addition, allotment of funds for construction of cattle-sheds, transportation cost for

shifting of building materials, persons, and their belongings including cattle is to be provided

by the PIA, by such number of trips as must be mutually decided by the SRA in consultation

with individual families. Those PAPs who are given the land for land option, but voluntarily

do not opt for land, will be eligible to opt for assistance available to displaced persons from

urban areas.

2. Allotment of homestead land in rural area: All displaced families from the rural area, shall

be settled in areas selected by the PAP from among a range of real choices (at least three),

including sites as close as possible to the place of displacement, as well as sites as close as

possible to new livelihoods such as the command area or new factory and the new township.

If such families are settled in the rural areas, they shall be allotted a homestead land, which

must not be less than the homestead land acquired, submerged or otherwise lost on account

of the project, subject to a minimum of 150 sq. ms.

3. Allotment of constructed houses and standard/ floor area thereof: In addition to allotment

of homestead land each family settled in a rural area shall be provided with a constructed

house of the standard prescribed under IAY with one living room for the nuclear family of

husband, wife and two minor children. but for every two additional adult members living in

such family one additional dwelling room of at least 3.5 m x 3.5 m floor area is to be added

to such a constructed house, subject to a maximum number of three additional rooms per

family. If the displaced families are willing to and capable of getting their houses

constructed, they are to be given financial assistance equivalent to the rate prescribed in IAY.

Based on the replacement value at the market rates for the house acquired, such families

may, however, on their own, construct additional rooms or make necessary extension of the

constructed houses out of the funds received as compensation as well as by using building

materials allowed to be transported at the cost provided by the AA.

4. Allotment of funds for construction of cattle-sheds: The AA shall provide necessary

financial assistance as may be required for the construction of cattle-sheds or poultry farms in

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the place of their resettlement of the same size and standard as was owned by any displaced

family. The quantum of amount shall be decided for each individual family separately on the

basis of number of cattle or birds owned and transported to the new place of settlement.

5. Allotment of homestead land in urban area: For allotment of homestead in urban centres a

family must be allotted homestead land to the extent acquired and up to a minimum of 50 sq.

meters and a maximum of 150 sq. meters. However, the number of rooms to be constructed

for a single family or a joint family shall be determined on the basis of the total number of

adult members in the family. At least one living room for the nuclear family of husband,

wife and two minor children and for every two additional adult members living in such

family one additional dwelling room of at least 3.5 m x 3.5 m floor area must be added to

such a constructed house, subject to a maximum number of two additional rooms per family.

6. In case of no allotment of constructed houses in the rural areas: If the displaced family is

willing to construct their house, financial assistance given them should be equivalent to the

rate prescribed in the IAY or equivalent to the replacement value whichever is higher.

7. Independent plot for every adult of the family and preferably readymade constructed

houses should be avoided.

8. Allotment of homestead land to homeless families: No displaced family shall be left

shelterless in the area of their resettlement. A displaced family, which had a dwelling house

on unauthorized land, or a kuchha house on authorized land, or did not have either authorized

homestead land shall be provided 50 sq. mtrs in the urban area or 150 sq.mtrs in the rural

areas with a constructed dwelling house of such standard and with such number of rooms as

prescribed for resettlement of various sizes of displaced families to be resettled in the rural as

well as urban habitations.

9. Construction cost of new houses to be borne by PIA through the SRA: The construction

cost is to be borne by the PIA, in the form of a construction grant and it shall not be less than

the amount specified from time to time for construction of IAY houses, if such houses are

constructed in the rural areas. As far as possible, cash payment must be avoided, and

substituted by provision of materials/supplies through contracted sellers. For construction of

houses in the urban areas, the amount to be given as construction grant shall be 50 per cent

more than what is allocable for construction of houses in the rural areas in the same tehsil.

An option is to provide the replacement value of the house acquired.

10. Limitation to adjustment of the cost of construction of dwelling housing against

compensation awarded: The cost of construction of the dwelling houses shall not be adjusted

from the compensation payable to a BPL family.

7. 2.6 Self-employed Persons

1. For all self-employed persons in the project affected areas who can transfer their self-

employment to the new area, all the incentive schemes, subsidies, material and financial

assistance, on a priority basis, should be made available so as to enable them to resettle in the

new area. It is recognized here that some small agriculturists or landless workers are also

self-employed, therefore for purposes of this section, only those persons will be regarded as

self-employed who derive more than 66 per cent of their family income from this source.

Also in order to exclude large traders who would not require special consideration and

assistance, the assistance mentioned in this section would not be available to self-employed

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persons with a capitalised value of trade and business of 25 lakh rupees or more at 1998

prices. In the cases of self-employed persons who cannot or do not wish to transfer their self-

employment to the new area, they would be provided with opportunities for similar or

alternative self-employment in the new area with similar facilities in the form of incentives,

subsidies, material and financial assistance. Local agencies must be given additional grants

for various relevant schemes so that they do not have to eat into the rightful quota of the host

communities and conflict is avoided. If it is not possible to do so, they must be paid

compensation on the basis of the capitalised value of their trade or business. This will be

calculated by the SRA on the basis of a speaking order which would be appealable. They

must also be provided with jobs, as indicated below, subject to the willingness of the PAP.

7.2.7 Allotment of constructed shops or working sheds

All displaced families, including artisans, shop-keepers, small traders, etc. shall be provided

in addition to what is admissible to all the displaced families under this policy, all non-

agricultural necessary assistance to resume the traditional/ family trade, occupation, vocation

and productive activities in their new place of settlement. The allotment would be of a

constructed shop or working shed along with the land required for such construction to

resume trade. The allottee would also be given transport cost for shifting the goods,

materials, moveable properties to the place of resettlement. An artisan, like a potter,

blacksmith, carpenter, metal-worker, weaver, shoe-maker, etc. would also be given

constructed sheds along with necessary land for resuming his or her productive activities. In

case a shop owner has rented out his or her shop or run it through paid employees, an

equitable R&R Policy which centers around restoring livelihoods would give separate

allotments of shops in the new township to the former shop owner and tenant/ employee.

This will also be applicable to urban areas.

7.2.8 Interim financial assistance

In case of displacement preceding the allotment of constructed sheds and land, all resident

adult members of the family of displaced artisans, shop keepers, small traders etc. shall be

given a monthly subsistence allowance of not less than 25 days minimum wages for each

adult member of the family till the alternative sheds are constructed. The SRA is also

responsible for providing active assistance with regard to improvements in technology,

markets, access to credit and raw materials etc. Displacement of self-employed persons is

permitted only where an alternative sustainable source of livelihood is established at least

one year prior to the displacement.

7.2.9 Tribals

1. Tribals have borne a highly disproportionate burden of displacement in development

projects. Because of their especial vulnerability when uprooted from their traditional habitats

they have suffered more. Therefore, to the maximum extent possible large scale projects in

tribal areas must be reconsidered carefully as to whether they can be located elsewhere so as

to avoid or at least minimise tribal displacement. The first policy option should be an option

that would save tribals from displacement and not alienate them from their lands and

livelihood. The next preference should be a technology and project with minimum

displacement, which should be accepted even if the costs are greater and the benefits are less

than the greater displacement option.

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2. It is a common experience that displaced tribal communities are not able to settle and

strike roots in regions that are very different socio-culturally and with different resource

bases and social institutions from their original habitats. Hence, whenever a project displaces

such communities, they must preferably be resettled in a zone adjacent to the affected area,

similar to the socio-cultural, ecological, linguistic and economic characteristics of the

community. All tribal communities must be rehabilitated strictly in compliance with

international covenants in support of tribal rights like the Convention 107 of 1957 and the

Convention 169 of 1989 of the International Labour Organisation and the United Nations

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007. These international covenants to

which the Indian Government is a signatory provide for full recognition of the special status

of tribals and the need for their total participation and consent in the conduct of development

projects which seek to displace them from their traditional habitats and livelihoods.

3. Efforts must be made to ensure that all tribal families of the ousted villages are resettled

together in a particular area, to the extent possible. The minimum unit for relocation must

be a hamlet or a clan. In no case must such tribal families be so segregated in providing

settlement with house-sites, that they lose the contact within their linguistic and ethnic

group, unless any family had expressed its willingness to such segregated rehabilitation. For

settlement of tribal families in a new locality, common property land for religious and

community gathering must be allotted free of cost.

4. Prior to the acquisition of land for any project in any tribal area, all land rights due but not

settled should be settled through a special drive ending before land acquisition commences.

An inquiry must be made by the competent revenue authorities in collaboration with reputed

voluntary organizations to determine whether any tribal lands have been transferred to non-

tribals in violation of the law on the subject. Urgent measures must be taken to cancel such

transfers and restore the right and title of the tribals on their alienated land, before acquisition

proceedings are started, so that the tribal families are not deprived of their legal rights and

benefits of allotment of fresh land.

5. Measures must also be taken to record the rights of tribals in land allotted to them. All

forest land under occupation of the tribal families before 13th December 2005 shall be

deemed for purposes of compensation and R&R to have been allotted or owned by the

concerned tribal families and while dispossessing from such land such families shall be

treated at par with land-owners with legal title (with joint ownership of husband and wife).

This will ensure that the compensation and rehabilitation package is made available also to

such tribals who occupied forest lands in the past, but were unable to secure legal rights.

6. The displaced tribal families shall also be compensated for loss of their customary

rights/usage on forest produce and fishing rights in case the new site does not provide for

such gathering of forest produce. Such compensation should be calculated as the minimum

wages which a tribal would have earned at the rates fixed by the respective State Government

during one single working season of 45 days for each year till forest and fishing resources are

not restored again. This will be in addition to normal packages like one-time rehabilitation

grant for loss of livelihood. This must, however, be treated only as an interim measure. PIA

and SRA must ensure that within alternate fuel, fodder and NTFP resources are developed

on non forest common lands to meet the needs of the relocated tribal community. The annual

compensation grant prescribed above for this purpose may be combined with funds under the

NREGS to undertake such reforestation and watershed development programmes.

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7.2.10 Persons Not Adequately Rehabilitated in Earlier Projects

In the majority of projects executed since Independence, resettlement and rehabilitation were

not done systematically to enable displaced and affected people to regain their livelihoods

and rebuild their lives. This has dispersed the displaced and affected people to a wider

geographical area, and empirical studies have established that the trauma of their destitution

has left them living in enhanced poverty and in several cases in stark destitution (Fernandes

and Thukral 1989). These disempowered people, pauperized by the development process

itself, must be provided even belatedly with rehabilitation benefits to enable them to regain

and if possible improve upon their existing livelihoods. This must be in the nature of a

national commitment.

1. The SRA will be responsible for tracing and enumeration of the people displaced and

affected by all projects since Independence within a particular state which have been

executed or are under execution prior to the coming into force of this policy. The SRA with

the assistance of reputed academic institutions and NGOs will undertake this exercise,

especially an assessment of their shelter and livelihood needs. It is recognized that especially

for older projects, the tracing of displaced persons can be a highly daunting task, but it must

be pursued with commitment and will to the extent feasible. The Central Government, on the

basis of such studies, would assist the State Governments through the SRAs to enable the

older PAPs to satisfy their needs, mainly through special allotments under existing

governmental programmes for provision of houseplots and title deeds, construction or repair

of house through IAY and a National Slum Development Programme. They should be

assisted also in acquiring employable skills and initiation of self-employment activities

through various schemes. The displaced women could be facilitated to enhance their income

earning potential through resources from special programmes and financial institutions. Such

assistance must be based on special additional allocations and should not be at the expense of

the share of the host community.

3. In those cases where, in the absence of a satisfactory alternative acceptable to the people or

the person concerned, they may have changed their habitation and established a new one on

their own; or a person after losing her or his resource base may have occupied a piece of land

and may be subsisting on the same through family labour, and not hired labourers, no

coercive process shall be instituted against the people under any law whatsoever. The new

habitation shall be deemed to have acquired the status of a regular residence after lapse of

five years irrespective of the status of the land - private, common, community or revenue, on

which it is situated. In case of private lands so encroached on the affected persons shall be

eligible for compensation as per the provisions of this policy. In the case of forest lands, the

provisions of the STOTFDA will be applied.

These provisions are very comprehensive and if sincerely implemented will ensure that

the burgeoning opposition to land acquisition that invariably surfaces these days will be tackled

in a just and equitable manner. In Scheduled Areas the impelementation of these provisions will

involve the active participation of the Gram Sabha in accordance with PESA. Even though in the

immediate perspective it would lead to an enhancement of project costs in the long run it would

ensure inclusive development by providing alternative sustainable livelihood opportunities to

displaced people who are mostly tribals with little or no skills for negotiating the modern

economy.

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7.3 National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) being implemented under

the NREGA has made a considerable positive impact on the livelihoods of deprived villagers in

Chattisgarh. For instance, this scheme has benefited the tribal residents of Kanchanpur village in

Korea district of Chhattisgarh to a great extent. Evident are the instances of these villagers being

regularly employed and as such their worries over hunting for jobs elsewhere have been literally

erased. Now they don't have to venture out for their daily bread anymore. They are harnessing

their productive potential to the hilt and are getting at least hundred days of employment, the

output of which is dedicated to the overall rural development of their very own region. Under

this scheme many other villagers in Korea district are being ensured of employment in various

categories like land development, rural connectivity, water conservation and water harvesting

among others (Topnews 2009).

Throughout the several focus group discussions conducted as part of this study the impact

of NREGS was also discussed. Even though the ideal situation described above does not prevail

uniformly throughout the state the big farmers did complaing that due to the NREGS the

agricultural wage has gone up and it is difficult to find labour for farm work. Small and marginal

farmers and landless labourers said they have got a fair amount of extra employment which has

provided them with an alternative to working on the land of big farmers or making bidis. This

has led to the increase in farm wages from around Rs. 30 per day earlier to about Rs. 60 per day

but they are still less than the Rs. 90 per day that is given in the NREGS. However, the problem

is that the payment under NREGS is invariably delayed by anything from a month to two

months. The mass organisation Jurmil Morcha which is active in Ambagarh Chowki Block of

Rajnandgaon district in fact has had to organise several sit in demonstrations at the Block Office

to get the payments disbursed for work done under the scheme.

Moreover, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India on the

performance of the state in NREGA indicates that even though it was given an award for good

implementation of NREGS in two districts overall it could ensure only 35 days of employment

to those who applied and the works too were of sub-standard quality (Kaiser 2009). Thus there is

still a need to operationalise NREGS properly in all the rural areas of the state and especially the

tribal areas. The main hurdles that have been pinpointed in a study (Ambastha, Vijashankar and

Shah 2008) are as follows -

a) the lack of enough qualified sub engineers and other support staff to evaluate the works

on time and so ensure timely payment of wages.

b) The apathy of the administration towards using social audits by the people of the Gram

Sabhas instead of engineer valuations for evaluating the work done.

c) The inadequacy of the rural banking infrastructure to handle the huge increased load of

payments that have to be made resulting in further delays.

d) the lack of trained staff who can assist in preparing natural resource management and

development plans which can contribute to a sustainable increase in productivity of

agriculture, poultry, fishery, livestock and NTFP collection.

e) the inability to develop a workable Management Information System that can function as

both a provider of information and monitoring tool for planning purposes.

Once these hurdles are overcome then a combination of PESA and NREGS can easily

ensure just and sustainable development in Scheduled Areas.

69

8. Conclusions

The legal and policy framework for ensuring that tribals in Chhattisgarh can lead

dignified lives in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution is fairly strong. However,

the problem is in the implementation of these laws and policies. This is basically due to the

nature of modern development which has been predicated on the displacement and alienation of

tribals beginning with the European conquest of the Americas in the fifteenth century (Turner

and Butzer 1992). Whether it is in the management of forests, water resources, mineral

resources, industry or agriculture the interests of small holder and landless tribal farmers and

artisans is not taken into consideration. Neither are steps taken to re-train the displaced tribals to

enable them to be absorbed effectively in the new projects that come up on the lands from which

they have been displaced. The provision of proper compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement

and also compliance with environmental standards all add to the project establishment and

operation costs which cut into the profits of the project. Thus, whether it is public sector units or

private ones there is a tendency towards cheating the tribals. The government too goes along

with the project authorities and wilfully ignores the constitutional provisions and those of PESA

and other beneficial laws and policies. Chhattisgarh being rich in natural resources, the incidence

of displacement and devastation of tribals has been very high. Moreover, the government has

failed to deliver properly even the basic economic and social services and it has also failed to

prevent the exploitation of tribals by moneylenders, traders and lower level government staff.

This history of injustice to the tribals after independence has naturally made them wary of

government interventions and given the huge shortage of land and alternative livelihoods and the

sorry state of government services at present there is tremendous disaffection among them. This

is the context in which the Maoist movement has struck deep roots within tribal communities in

the state which has led to a civil war situation. The Maoists ensure swift justice against local

exploiters and also prevent displacement due to development projects. Since the Scheduled

Areas in Chhattisgarh are so rich in natural resources the government cannot possibly allow the

Maoists to continue their rebellion and this has led to heightened conflict. Apart from the state

security forces, tribals have been pitted against tribals through the Salwa Judum in this conflict,

completely devastating their traditional livelihoods and culture.

The picture that emerges from this study is a very discouraging one. PESA and its allied

laws and regulations are being violated at will in the Scheduled Areas of Chhattisgarh in pursuit

of industrial development and the elimination of Maoism. The few NGOs and CSOs that are

trying to build a movement of the tribals for the implementation of PESA are severely

handicapped by the atmosphere of fear and repression that prevails due to the ongoing civil war

and the thrust for industrial development. The judiciary too right from the lowest to the highest

level does not support human and tribal rights in the way it should as it too are influenced by the

fear of the spread of Maoism and the belief that industrial development is the only solution to

socio-economic ills. The Central and State Governments are wary of discussing the alienation

suffered by the tribals due to unjust development policies.

Nevertheless this study concludes on a hopeful note by listing a set of remedial measures

that can be taken to ensure the implementation of PESA and allied laws and regulations because

that is the only sustainable development path for the future. In Chhattisgarh more than anywhere

else grassroots tribal democracy is at a crossroads between forces pulling in opposite directions.

Given the strong legal and policy framework that is in place it is possible to ensure justice for the

tribals with pro-active implementation by the State coupled with inputs from NGOs and CSOs.

70

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73

10. Glossary and Abbreviations

The abbreviations used more often in the text and some terms whose meanings and

purpose require some explanation are given in the table below

Abbreviation/ Term Full form / Explanation

AA Acquiring Agency which acquires land for a development

project

Central Place

Hierarchisation

An analytical procedure in geography for studying the

development of centralisation due to development projects used

to determing environmental impact of projects

CfE Consent for Establishment of a project given by the envrionment

regulator after environmental impact assessment

CfO Consent for Operation of a project given by the environment

regulator when it has already been established

CGECB Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board

CMM Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha which is a mass organisation of the

toiling people of Chhattisgarh

CSO Civil Society Organisation

Ecological Footprint This is the area that is required to sustainably provide natural

resources for and absorb pollutants from a development project

EIA Environment Impact Assessment that is carried out before

environmental clearance is granted by the environment regulator

to a project

EIAA Environment Impact Assessment Authority which is the

environment regulator for development projects

EPA The Environment Protection Act 1986

Fifth Schedule A schedule of the Indian Constitution which makes provisions

for the special governance of tribal areas in India in accordance

with tribal specificities

Gram Panchayat The village local government elected by the members of the

Gram Sabha

Gram Sabha The village general body which in tribal areas may be as small

as a hamlet

Gravity Modeling An analytical procedure in geography for studying the flow of

population and resources into development centres used for

determining the environmental impact of development projects

Malguzars, Zamindars Land revenue collection agents appointed by the British who

effectively became the landlords

MLA Member of Legislative Assembly who is an elected state level

law maker

MoEF Ministry of Environment and Forests of Government of India

MoU Memorandum of Understanding

NGO Non-Government Organisation

74

Abbreviation/ Term Full form / Explanation

NMDC National Mineral Development Corporation which is engaged in

the mining of iron-ore in Chhattisgarh

NREGA The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 which

assures 100 days of employment in a year to rural people

NREGS The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which is the

scheme through which NREGA is implemented

NTFP Non-Timber Forest Produce

PAP Project Affected Person

PESA The Panchayat Extension (Extension To The Scheduled Areas)

Act 1996 which has been enacted to ensure grassroots

democracy in tribal areas in accordance with tribal specificities

PIA Project Implementation Agency which establishes a

development project

R&R Rehabilitation and Resettlement of persons affected by

displacement due to development projects

Scheduled Area An area notified by the State Government as being eligible for

special governance for tribals under the provisions of the Fifth

Schedule of the Constitution

SRA State Rehabilitation Authority proposed to be established to

oversee the rehabilitation of project affected persons

STOTFDA Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers

(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 which provides for land

titles to be given to tribals and forest dwellers who have been

traditionally cultivating forest land.

WLS Wildlife Sanctuaries set up for the conservation of wild life

under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972