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By Moushumi Basu
Jharkhand went on an MoU-signing spree with industry a few years ago. Now these industries are on the back foot, facing strong opposition from local adivasis. Adivasis are not beggars, they say, rejecting the state R&R policy which requires corporations to give 1% of their annual profits to adivasi landowners whose lands have been acquired
The rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) policy cleared by the Cabinet of mineral-rich Jharkhand nearly four months ago seems to be stuck in politics. The policy is yet to be notified by government after a change of
guard in the state during the last week of September.
Judging by local protests against the policy and numerous anti-displacement agitations across Jharkhand, the state’s industry minister Sudhir Mahato’s assurance that Chief Minister Shibu Soren was contemplating modifying certain clauses in the policy does not appear to have any takers.
Leading the anti-displacement brigade against world steel giant Arcelor Mittal in Jharkhand’s Khunti and Gumla districts is Dayamani Barla, vociferous tribal activist and winner of the 2008 Chingari Award for Women Against Corporate Crime. “The policy is slow poison; it is deliberately laden with confusion and ambiguity,” she says.
The policy states that while 70% of the land has to be acquired by the company, 30% will be procured by the state government. What’s unclear however is whether the R&R policy is only applicable to 30% of the land. For the remaining 70%, the company is already entering into negotiations with middlemen fixing land rates and so-called compensation. Barla says: “We are simply kept in the dark as to what the provisions are; there is hardly any transparency in the policy.”
“There should be tripartite MoUs between companies, the state government and landowners to set up industries,” says Ajay Tirkey, president, Kendriya Sarna Samiti (KSS), an organisation protesting the displacement of tribals across the state. “We are not against development, but in the name of development, we cannot be deprived of our rights.” Tirkey adds that the tribals had earlier given land to several public sector units like Heavy Engineering Corporation, Bokaro Steel Plant, DVC, etc, “but see the condition of the displaced -- they have been reduced to encroachers on their own land”.
Many companies directly approach landowners when they want to acquire land for industry. “We have rejected the R&R policy of the state government and submitted points of suggestion to Chief Minister Shibu Soren to amend the policy,” says Tirkey. “The adivasis are not beggars,” adds Stan Swamy, Convenor, Bagaicha, an organisation working for indigenous people in Jharkhand and Orissa. “The proposal in the R&R policy to give 1% of the annual profits of corporate houses to adivasi landowners is ridiculous. There should be a limit to the greed of the industrialists. They want to take away 99% of the annual profits their companies make and throw one trivial per cent at the adivasis in whose land all the mineral wealth is stored. Since the mineral wealth is on adivasi land, they are the rightful owners of what is above and beneath the land. The law of nature is above any state law,” Swamy adds.
Munni Hansda, who heads the Jharkhand Ulgulan Manch against the CESC’s proposed 1,000 MW power plant in Dumka district, says: “The Jharkhand government should certainly change its R&R policy, and industrialists should agree to share their profits more justly with those who give their land freely and willingly. The necessary intermediary is the gram sabha. People are awakening to their rights; resistance movements are building up. The nation’s wealth should be evenly shared. This alone will lead to the state’s development.”
 It’s not difficult to see that Arcelor Mittal is facing “giant” odds against land acquisition for its proposed 12 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) plant in the districts of Khunti and Gumla. Tata Steel’s proposed greenfield integrated steel plant of the same capacity, in the Manoharpur and Saraikela areas of Jharkhand, too has been held in abeyance. So is the expansion of an existing plant in Jamshedpur from 5 MTPA to 10 MTPA. Likewise, Jindal South West Steel Limited (JSWSL), India’s second largest private sector steel maker, has also put its ambitious 10 MTPA Jharkhand project in Hesslong-Nimidih in Saraikela-Kharsawan district on the backburner. As have medium investors like Kohinoor Steel and Bhushan Power and Steel Limited. The former was compelled to shift expansion plans from its site at Kuchidih, located one-and-a-half kilometres from Kandra-Chowka Main Road in Saraikela district, to Madhya Pradesh, even after an investment of Rs 250 crore. The latter has threatened to scrap its plans to set up a mega integrated steel plant in Jharkhand after its surveyors were assaulted by villagers in Potka block. The company has already suspended land acquisition plans for a 3 MTPA steel plant and a 900 MW power plant in Asanboni, near Jamshedpur.
All this after the state government went on a memorandum-signing spree in February 2003. According to official figures, a total of 70 MoUs have so far been signed with the industry department to set up integrated steel and captive power plants; 31 have been signed with the energy department, for power plants.
State industry secretary N N Sinha recently acknowledged that there was growing disinterest amongst investors in Jharkhand today. According to him, at least 25 of 70 investors in the steel sector are planning to drop investments in the state.
The crux of the problem is land
Arcelor Mittal signed an MoU with the government of Jharkhand in October 2005. Initially, the company made some headway in acquiring the lease of Karampada Iron Ore Mines located in a reserved forest in Meghataburu Mauja, West Singbhum, for its proposed steel plant. It was also allotted the Seregarha coal block. However, when it came to land acquisition it has not been very successful, thanks to stiff local resistance. The mega steel project requires 12,000 acres of land; the site chosen includes the three blocks of Karra, Torpa and Rania in Khunti district, and Kamdara in Gumla district.
Despite the people’s resistance though, Vijay Bhatnagar, CEO, Arcelor Mittal India, remains optimistic that dialogue will break the ongoing deadlock between the villagers over land acquisition. “We are in the middle of talks. The villagers may have genuine reasons for their grievances, but we will certainly succeed in convincing them that Jharkhand’s R&R policy will be followed both in letter and in spirit. We are still in the first phase, that of trying to communicate with the villagers. The whole process has to be transparent.”
Tata Steel too has not had a very easy time since the signing of four MoUs with the government of Jharkhand in September 2005. It has a projected requirement of 8,000 acres of land for its greenfield project, at a proposed investment of Rs 42,000 crore.
A senior official at Jindal South West Steel Limited (JSWSL), who prefers to remain anonymous, admits: “The only problem at this point is the acquisition of 6,500 acres of land for the first phase of the project, which is progressing slowly. As per the MoU signed with the Jharkhand government, construction of the steel plant should have started by now.” But, director (finance) Seshagiri Rao says: “We are currently working on the operationalisation of the Rohne coal block and Ankua iron ore mines allotted to us.”
JSWSL’s Jharkhand plant was scheduled to start commercial steel production by 2014. The company has already got all the mandatory clearances including those relating to coal, iron ore mines, and water. Once again, however, the issue hinges on land acquisition.
Kohinoor Steel’s integrated plant, with a capacity of 400 tonnes per day, halted activities twice in the year, following attacks. The plant is located on the Kandra-Chowka road, in Khuchidih village, Saraikela-Kharsawan district.
Kohinoor Steel has already invested Rs 250 crore in Jharkhand out of its proposed investment of above Rs 500 crore, and was one of the fastest to begin production -- a record seven months from the signing of the MoU! This will come up on 45 acres of private-owned land that the company bought directly from the villagers in the first phase. “We have been in a position to go in for expansion since 2006. We require a total of 160 acres, which has been identified,” says Vijay Bothra. The land in question was largely parat (barren) gairmajruha land, with no habitations, he adds. Therefore, there was no local resistance. But, he says, all they have got since are assurances and no land. Tired of waiting, the company is now planning its next phase of expansion in Madhya Pradesh.
For Bhushan Power and Steel Limited, things could not be any worse. In the course of conducting a survey for land for its proposed 3 MTPA steel plant and 900 MW power plant, in Potka block of East Singhbhum district, three of its surveyors were assaulted by villagers and garlanded with shoes. The company has threatened to call off its investment plans in the state. “The government is being non-cooperative. On the one hand, our employees are being assaulted by locals during land surveys; on the other, the government says come to us only after acquiring 50% of the required land,” says the executive director (Jharkhand project) Paras Singh.
Bhushan Power and Steel Limited, which plans to invest around Rs 10,500 crore in the plant, has been able to acquire only about 100 acres of a total of 3,400 acres it requires for the project and rehabilitation. Following the incident with the land surveyors, the company has suspended the land acquisition process for its proposed steel project. “The government has to improve the law and order situation if it wants us to stay here,” says Singh.
Similarly, engineers of Jindal Steel and Power Limited were robbed on their way to the plant at Patratu. This was followed by a firing incident aimed at contractors in the plant site.
In view of the above, JSPL sent a letter to the chief secretary A K Basu asking for more security in and around the plant. A meeting to this effect was convened by the home secretary, J B Tubid.
Roads, power, law and order are the primary concerns of Avijit Ghosh, assistant vice-president corporate affairs, Jindal Steel and Power Limited. A 50 km road from Hatgamaria to Barajamdiha, up to Kiriburu, and the 55 km stretch from Pithoria to Ramgarh need to be widened to allow the carrying of ore, he says. The government also must take up and expedite several railway projects with the Union ministry of rail, such as one from Bara Jamdiha to Chakradharpur.
Even as West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya nurses the wounds of Singur, Jharkhand’s Chief Minister Shibu Soren does not seem perturbed. He even ruffled the feathers of Tata Steel recently by saying that “the company could never really assimilate in the state even after 100 years”.
On the one hand, principal secretary, revenue and land reforms, R S Poddar said, at the first state-level workshop on the R&R policy in the capital: “Corporate houses have the right to negotiate the price of land directly with the villagers and can go ahead with 70% of the procurement on their own. Acquisition of the remaining requirement of land will be the responsibility of the government that will procure it on behalf of the company.” And on the other hand, state industry minister Sudhir Mahato has stated: “Corporate houses have taken a confrontationist attitude towards the villagers. They are trying to go ahead without taking them into confidence. The umbrage of the villagers is obvious considering that there is no uniformity in the negotiation of the price of land in different parts of the state.”
(Moushumi Basu is a journalist based in Jharkhand)
InfoChange News & Features, December 2008
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