Converging Community, Commons and Capital: Is responsible land-based investment acceptable and sustainable? A case study from Eastern India State of Odisha

Pranab Ranjan Choudhury, Sumita Sindhi oridev@gmail.com

Content !   Investment (NR-Minerals)Destination – Odisha

!   Mineral-Land-Commons Linkages

!   Mineral-Community (Poverty & Tribal)- Commons

!   Commons Connection- Historical Injustice

!   Common Confusion: Intentional or Lack of Concern?

!   Common Framework

!   Decline of Commons and Implications on Community

!   Common Land Allotment

!   Contribution of Investment on Job-creation

!   Reaction to Investments

!   Argument around Commons Governance

!   Gaps & Options

Investment Destination- Odisha !   Post-1991 Economic reforms and liberalization process used to attract

investments for state development around Natural Resources

!   Trajectory was to exploit of its mineral endowment (viz. 33% iron ore, 60% of bauxite, 98% of chromites, 25% of coal and 68% of manganese reserve of the country) to propel industrialization

!   Creation of enabling legal and institutional space –Team-Odisha, IDCO, IPICOL

!   Has attracted a commitment of about 10 billion USD, 27% of all-India investments mostly around mineral

!   49 MoUs with various domestic and foreign companies for production of more than 75 million tonnes of steel with an investment of USD 33 billion.

Investment-Land linkage

!   Most investments around Mineral/Metal

!   Requires lands in multiple locations for mining, ore-processing, manufacturing/downstream industries and also for yards to store and export

!   Official area under mines has increased by almost half between 1988 and 2006 (98,024 ha to 141,758 ha).

!   600 mining leases in 2011-12, covering an area of 98,438 thousand ha

28 33 37

42 43 44 45 48 52 60

67 71 81

90 98

8 8 11 12 12 12 14 17 22

35 46 48

66 75 77

2 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 7 6 6 6 6 7 7 8 8 9

21

10 10 9

Mineral Production Trend (million mteric tonnes)

Coal Ironore Bauxite Others

Common Land & Minerals

Mining 32%

Irrigation 13%

Road, Railway &

Transmission line 7%

Encroachment & Forest Vill Conversion

2%

Defence 3%

Others 43%

•  One third of 142 thousand ha of Forestland diverted since 1980 were for mining

•  Mineral based industries account for more than 80% of land allocated through IDCO (67, 000 ha during 1995-2013)

Mineral- Tribal-Poverty-Commons-Nexus •  90% of coal and >50% most other mineral reserves are located in the tribal regions

•  Among 50 top mineral producing districts of India, 60% located in 150 most backwards districts.

•  In Odisha, Keonjhar produces 21% of India’s iron ore has 60% population living BPL(below poverty line) & Koraput, with around 40% of India’s Bauxite ranked has 79% population BPL

•  CPR are more in these districts are ease to expropriate; projects prefer to go for more CPR with less private land to downsize number of affected persons & avoid political and economic burdens

!   CPR formed 58% of the land acquired for NALCO in Koraput, qhile it was only 18% in non-tribal Angul (Fernandes and Raj 1992)

!   Post-1990, more than 1/3rd land allotted by IDCO were public (Government) land, which percentage is higher in the four industrialized districts where almost half the lands were allotted Jajpur, Angul, Jharsuguda and Jagatsinghpur

•  60% of 1 million ha used for development during 1951-95 were CPR (Fernandes and Asif 1997)

10 6 4 9

14 15 5

9

10 10

8

11

1 1

1

1

Tribal Area KBK Coastal Odisha

Distribution of Government land in Strategic Geographies

AbadJogyaAnabadi AbadAjogyaAnabadi Rakshit SarbaSadharan

More Commons in poverty and tribal geography

Historical injustice? Almost 2/3rd of land with the state

!   Inherited land governance legacies

!   State policy towards shifting cultivation

!   Limitations of survey and settlements

!   Process of forest reservation

!   A majority of these lands are common resources either de-facto and de-jure and their share go above 80% of total land in the Schedule V

!   Higher % of Landlessness and % of Small and Marginal Farmers

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

100

% of Private Land % of landlessness (< 1 std acre)

% of Govt land % of Forest land

Access to land in Schedule Area of Odisha

Gajapati Kalahandi Keonjhar Kondhmal Koraput

Malkangiri Mayurbhanj Nowrangpur Rayagada Sundergarh

State holds 3/4th of land 20% HH are landless And another 65% HH own only 13% land; 2/3rd Tribal and Dalit population

In PVTGs Area

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Lanjia Juang Didayi Kutia Kondh Pauri Bhuyan Saora Average

Land Ownership in PVTG Areas

Other lands

Wasteland

Forest land

Cultivable land

Across PVTG Homelands

Commons Confusion: Intentional? !   Commons in Odisha context, are not defined in terms of ownership

!   De-jure forms a subset under the more clearly defined term ‘Government Land’; though de-facto all Govt land are commons including forest, seasonal private land

!   Definitions by NSSO- De-facto for area and De-jure for dependence

!   Draft National Land Reform Policy: !   Not in favor of a uniform national definition of CPR •  Prescribes for defining the perspective through it need to be looked at •  As per importance to support rural livelihoods and ecology as a whole. •  CPR in terms of its inalienable use rights by all members of an identifiable

community and emphasize their importance because of their large area and their contribution to people's sustenance

Quantifying Commons

AbadJogyaAnabadi

9%

AbadAjogya

Anabadi 9%

Rakshit 11%

SarbaSadharan 1%

Private land 70%

De-facto common land in Odisha (as % to total Village land)

Pvt 70%

Govt 23%

Common 7%

De jure Common Land as % total Village land (Gochar+ Gramya Jungle + Sarbasadharan)

NSSO (1998) : 11% of the state’s area with a per HH CPLR at 0.28 ha (per HH area - 0.58 ha)

Census, 2001: de-facto commons to 38% of village ( culturable waste + not-available-for-cultivation) Draft National land Reform Policy, 2013 Definition : 31%

Excluding Forest land

Common’s Decline !   Exclusion of the poor from CPR across regions of India well documented by Jodha and

Others (Jodha, 1986, 1990). (Nesmith, 1991; Agarwal, 1995; Iyengar & Shukla, 1999;

!   Extent of decline during 1959-80 is 26-52%, Jodha, 1986; by 33% over 20 years, Pasha (1992)

!   Drastic decline in number of products and in terms of time of collection over 30 year period, (Jodha 1986, 1990)

!   In Odisha, 25% decline in CPR area between 1980-81 and 2000-01 due to encroachment, development, land-reform (distribution) and overexploitation of CPR forest land

!   Decrease by Exclusion of the poor from CPR is being facilitated by a number of processes: liberalization, commodification, marketization and agricultural intensification which have been going on for decades (Freese, 1998); in addition, encroachment/possession, land distribution are common in Odisha

.

Post-liberalization Decline

Forest, 6.15 Net Area sown + Current Fallow, -4.25

Common Land, -21.24

Non-agril land use, 73.99

-40

-20

0

20

40

60

80

% c

hang

e

Land Use Change (1990-2012) (In %)

Commons-Community Linkages: Economics

!   Well documented through regional/ research investigations by Jodha and others; national perspective by NSSO; also R & R studies

!   Most tribes in India are CPR dependents, though lack formal ownership title on customary lands. (Fernandes, 1991)

!   Dependence is more in vulnerable ecosystems Iyengar (1997 and 1989); 10-29% of income and 31-42% of farm inputs from CPR ( Jodha, 1990)

!   As per NSSO, 1998, ratio of value of collection from CPR to consumption expenditure is 3.02% for India; Highest in Odisha at 5.59% (value Rs 929)

!   CPR contributed US $5 billion a year to the incomes of poor rural households in India (12% to household income; 2.5 times total World Bank lending or about twice FDI to India in fiscal 1996 Becks and Nesmith (2001)

!   Income from forests (de-facto CPR) contributes 25% to 52% of the household income of those dependent on forests (Vasundhara, 2005 ).

!   Commons and Community Identity

!   CPR links to life events, festivals and social-norms

!   CPR contributes to culturally preferred, bio-diverse nutritious local food security !   50 types of leaves, 46 types of fruits, 15 types of flowers, 14 types of tubers, 11 types

of seeds and 5 types of gums form part of tribal diet in one form or the other ( Sinha and Lakra, 2005).

!   55 wild edible tuberous species representing 37 genera and 24 families contributing to tribal food security ( Misra et al 2013). including17 species used during food deficiency to meet seasonal shortages

!   Integral part of Village landscape and ecosystem to maintain balance

!   Biodiversity Conservation (Sacred Groves), nutrient flow, pollination services

!   As sink of Carbon in soil and vegetation

Commons-Community Linkages: Socio-Cultural & Ecological

Common Marginalization !   Out of 1 million ha of land acquired in Odisha during 1951-95 () ,

Forest land (30%) and Common land (28%). (Fernandes Walter, 1997)

•  Till 2000, about 2 million people have been directly affected by Development Projects out of which only 0.5 m have been physically displaced losing their home & hearth (Ota, 2001)

!   In Indravati project, each displaced family had been cultivating 0.6 ha of state owned and 1 ha of private land before displacement !   49% of the sampled family were landless,, but after displacement,

landlessness increased to 85.25%, !   Average legal landholding declined to 0.25 ha and the average government

land cultivated came down to only 0.125 ha (Ota, 2001)

!   Demographic numbers made available by projects count only the losers of individually owned land and ignore the CPR dependents (Fernandes)

Common Land Allotment -Legal framework

!   Compensation for commons in the existing legal framework !   Land Acquisition Act, 1894 – No compensation !   LARR -2013 (affected families entitled to get some benefits in form of R&R

entitlements, however the benefits to land losers are substantially more) !   Orissa R&R Policy 2006 which was based upon the LA Act doesn’t recognize

unrecorded rights

!   Common Land allotments/settlements for individuals !   OGLS, OPLE, GG Act, FRA

!   Many large projects prefer geography with more CPRs, to avoid political and economic implications of displacement

!   States are going for Land banks out of CPR

Allotment Issues

•  Land allocated for a purpose not put to destined use •  30% cases of GA allotments not transferred to destined use

after 3-12 years .

•  Land handed over to IDCO for allotment to four industries was not even used fully or partially even after three to 15 years

•  Allotment of more land than required

•  Allotment to Industry, but not under FRA or OGLS/OPLE

Mineral-based Investments: Contribution to Economy & Job creation

•  During 2004-13, no change in contribution of manufacturing sector (23.7% to 24.2%)

•  Mining subsector contribution about 7.5% to real GSDP; share is reducing since 2011-12

•  Employment in mining is poor because of mechanization. •  Employment per million USD of mineral production - 9.58 in 2011-12. •  Creation of 6.56 employments (2.06 direct and 3.3 indirect) per investment of a

million USD in steel and sponge iron industries

•  Odisha exported goods worth value USD 2.7 billion during 2011-12, out of which mineral and metallurgical products constituted 87%. However, 57% of the export was in form of raw minerals and 30% were semi-finished metallurgical products

•  Standard of living is below the national average(90%) since 1950-51, and now, 66% in 2013 (Rs 23,875 at 2004-05 price so as other indicators

•  Investment in MGNREGS in 2011-12, created 722 person year of employment per Million USD invested (though at the minimum wage rate), with 38% each for ST and Women.

• 

Reactions to Investments !   Impacts on Livelihoods

!   > 40% of the displaced families due to developmental projects in Orissa are tribal

!   Loss of control over their source of livelihood esp. affecting traditional livelihoods through curtailing access to commons and often destroying and polluting the means and stratums of these livelihoods.

!   Invisible impact on Food and nutrition

!   Protests, Social movements, Court cases, Naxal Issues

Arguments around Commons Discourse/  Rationale  

Towards  privatization   Maintaining  Common  Property  Regime  

Economic/  Market    

Inef&iciency  of  informal  communal  systems  and  ef?iciency  arguments    Easy  to  trade  interest  (Demsetz  1967).  Secure  collateral  to  access  easy  Credit  (Trebilcock  &  Veel  2007).  Mobilize  ‘dead  capital’  in  communal  land  (de  Soto,  2000)  Basis  for  entrepreneurial  success  (Hughes  &  Warin,  2005;  de  Soto,  2000)  Enhanced  economic  development  potential  (Trebilcock  &  Veel  2007)    ‘Neoliberal  enclosures’  for  capital  accumulation  (Akram  Lodhi  et  al.  2009)  

   

Economically  rational  forms  of  management  under  low  resource  productivity  conditions;  worked  to  the  bene?it  of  the  poor  (IFAD;  Beck  and  Nesmith  2001)      Coping  and  adaptive  strategies  of  rural  people  and  sustainable  livelihoods    

   Play  a  redistributive  role  with  greater  importance  and  relevance  to  the  poor  (Beck  and  Nesmith  2001)  

Cultural      

Maintaining  Common  Property  Regime  Relationship  of  indigenous  groups  with  their  traditional  territory  as  "I  belong  to  this  land,"      Emphasis  on  collective  ownership  and  an  extremely  long-­‐term  stewardship      ‘Critical  to  people’s  socio-­‐cultural  reproduction  (Holt-­‐Gimenez  2008)  Capacity  to  build  viable  futures    (Borrini-­‐Feyerabend  2004)  Explicit  commitment  to  acquire  FPIC  of  local  communities  as  per  UN  Resolution  in  2007      Indigenous  communities  successfully  obstructing  the  progress  and  completion  of  massive  projects  through  legal  route  locally  and  globally  

Communal land Governance- Trend •  Pre-colonial India : Very large part of the NR was CPR and freely

available to the rural population with local regulations.

•  State control began with the declaration of “reserved” and “protected” forests towards end of the 19th century, excluded access to common resources and gradually disintegrated local community management (IFA, 1928, LA, 1894 etc.)

•  Post-independent : Land Reform in sixties OGLS, OPLE

•  Post 90s – Local Governance through PRI

•  New formal institutions around CPR – JFM/WUA/WA- not very inclusive

•  Information-based – O S & S Act, 2012 – Hi Tech Survey

•  LARR, 2013

Common Vacuums !   Very limited investigations around CPR dependence, diversions since the

turn of Century – Mostly economics, less cultural and ecological

!   Absence of /inadequate legal framework : Legal Pluralism

!   Absence of Legal Protection: Green-protection (FCA, CEC, Green Tribunal etc.) of Common Land; disintegrated or no recognition of customary control

!   Poor Regulation for Equity and Justice :No multi-dimensional impact assessment/audit on Ecology, Livelihoods and Culture

!   There is a Central Government Department on Commons – DoLR (earlier DoWD), but focus only on developing, without identifying

! DoWD/DoLR approach of Poverty targeting on high Common Land- watershed development, didn’t have a common policy

!   Learning from OTELP (IFAD-WFP-DFID) example

Some Options for Coexistence !   Commons Ownership for Community

!   Addressing historical injustice around CPR – in line with FRA- !   Revisiting local governance around CPR, recognition of customary rights !   Individualization/ Community Governance as per Local Governance Unit

!   Commons Management/Governance !   Mapping of CPR and integrating CPR-use (including socio-cultural linkages; customary

rights) census in NSSO and integrating into Poverty !   Community Biodiversity Register (CBR) to capture ecological and cultural connections

and development of Management Plan as per Biodiversity Act !   Long-term perspective on CPRs should be evolved through developing land use plans of

each village; capping the private land or CPR

!   Commons for Capital !   Deciding the CPR which can be made available after all community needs and the non-

violate zones – Participatory and Transparent Zonation !   Minimum Commons for Investment !   Replacing the CPR : basic criterion for their compensation should be the replacement of

the livelihood lost and ecological Cost– Recreate the Common with Capital !   Code of conduct for Investment/Ethical Standards/Sustainability to sustain the

commons for community ?

Thanks!