om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

4
Women’s Alienation
by 2020. These 400 million displaced
agricultural refugees will constitute
the new class of migrants.
According to the Ministry of Steel,
the Government of India’s target
for the steel industry stands at 110
million metric tones by 2019-20, an
achievable number if all the MoUs
signed recently come through.
Different state governments have
signed more than 102 MoUs. This
will add up to 103 million tonnes (mt)
in steel capacity and investments of
over 5,994 million dollars. Of these
more than 40 are in Orissa alone –
Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are the
other two states that lead in signing
MoUs in the mining sector. Of the
total investment committed, about
17.9 billion dollars form the FDI
component coming from two large
steel projects: the first by the South
Korean steel giant POSCO in Orissa
and the second from Mittal Steel in
Jharkhand. Concerned civil society
groups and NGOs have repeatedly
pointed out that environmental
damage caused by mining is
irreparable, especially losses to tribals
and other affected communities.
Setting aside the profit motive, what
really rings alarm bells is the fallout
the new policy will have on natural
resources and livelihood of many
dependent on these mineral-rich
areas, which are mostly forested
and dominated by tribals and other
indigenous populations. However,
this has not acted as much of a
deterrent for a country that is
globalising its economy by exploiting
its mineral wealth.
These projects have invariably
led to the marginalisation and
impoverishment of the affected
people, creating an alarming
situation particularly for those from
the weaker sections. The manner
in which these projects have been
implemented has raised questions of
equity, fairness, justice and equality
before the law in the matter of
distribution of benefits and burdens.
More than one lakh hectares (ha.) of
forest land – almost 11 per cent of
the total forest area diverted in the
entire country since 1980 – has been
diverted for non-forest use in the
three mineral-rich states of Orissa,
Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, most
of it for mining and related industrial
and developmental purposes. Table
highlights incidents of diversion of
agricultural land for other purposes.