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

ContentInvestment (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

Mining32%

Irrigation13%

Road, Railway & Transmission line

7%

Encroachment & Forest Vill Con-

version3%

Defence3%

Others43%

• 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)

Tribal Area KBK Coastal Odisha

10 6 4 9

14 15 5

9

10 10

8

11

1 1

1

1

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

stateInherited 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

% of P

rivat

e La

nd

% of l

andl

essn

ess (<

1 std

acr

e)

% of G

ovt l

and

% of F

ores

t lan

d0

30

60

90

Access to land in Schedule Area of Odisha

Gajapati Kalahandi Keonjhar Kondhmal KoraputMalkangiri Mayurbhanj Nowrangpur Rayagada Sundergarh

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

In PVTGs Area 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

AbadJo-gyaAnabadi

9% AbadAj-ogyaAn-

abadi9%

Rakshit11%

Sar-baSad-haran

1%

Private land70%

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

Pvt70%

Govt23%

Common7%

De jure Common Land as % total Village land

(Gochar+ Gramya Jungle + Sar-basadharan)

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 DeclineExclusion 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

-40

-20

0

20

40

60

80

Forest; 6.15 Net Area

sown + Cur-rent Fallow;

(4.25)

Common Land;

(21.24)

Non-agril land use;

73.99

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

% c

han

ge

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 MarginalizationOut 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 frameworkLand 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 individualsOGLS, 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 CommonsDiscourse/

RationaleTowards privatization Maintaining Common Property

Regime

Economic/ Market

Inefficiency of informal communal systems and efficiency 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 benefit 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 RegimeRelationship 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!

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