• Project induced displacement

Project induced displacement

This report reviews environmental and social aspects of plans by Utkal Alumina Industries Ltd to mine bauxite and refine alumina. The project is a joint venture between Canada’s Alcan and Hindalco. This report is designed to inform Alcan’s decision-making about their relationships with this project and the indigenous people it affects.

The report notes that over the last 13 years the Government of Orissa has been trying to clear all the people out of the areas needed for Utkal. Most impacted people in this case are the Adivasis, extremely poor indigenous people, who are below and outside the caste system. This displacement has resulted in:

• unacceptably low compensation rates
• exclusion of many impacted communities
• substantially under-estimated assets, resulting in conversion of independent and self-reliant small-farmers into paupers now living in slums
• use of force by the police in order to pressure the Adivasis into accepting compensation through means of lathi-charges, tear-gassing, imprisonment, torture and the three shooting deaths near Maikanch village and twelve deaths in Kalinga Nagar.

This publication outlines the historic events culminating in today’s controversy by means of a detailed chronology or time-line. The main part of this report is an Action Plan for the three most powerful stakeholders, Utkal Co., and the Governments of Orissa and India, suggesting ways to prevent further human rights atrocities, restore peace, and seek to repair relationships with the abused Adivasis.

The report argues that the governments and corporations involved must obey existing laws including industry standards for environmental and social assessment, standard precautions for relations with Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights norms, transparency, as well as free, prior and informed consent.

The report recommends the following:

• the Government of Orissa should protect it citizens from human rights abuses, especially Orissa’s poor and indigenous minorities by preventing the police from enforcing the wishes of the mining proponents which go against the law
• the Government of India should enforce its own laws to protect its citizens by fostering compliance with its laws against buying and selling of Adivasi lands to the private sector
• the Government of India needs to urge the Government of Orissa to comply with national legislation, and immediately halt police brutality and further massacres.

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