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

8
Women’s Alienation
ages, have been very diverse and
have adopted different ways and
means suited to local settlements for
managing both their settlement and
their affairs. Prior to the reservation
of forests, communities were free to
choose their settlements and could
use natural resources according to
their needs without any hindrance
by administrative procedure. They
lived and thrived in perfect harmony
with natural resources. This was
abruptly eroded by the introduction
of the forest policy. The policy,
allowing activities that have very
little relevance to the communities
and their diverse needs, instead
started promoting the resource
extractive development model
depriving the communities of forest
resources for their sustenance. The
ongoing development processes
in Uttarakhand have led to a
significant diversion of forest land of
industrial and mining purposes, for
infrastructure development and for
accommodating growing demand
of new settlement. This has led to
an alarming loss of bio-diversity
and reduced community access to
common resources.
The process of development in
Rajasthan has broadly targeted
those who have, directly or
indirectly, traditionally depended
on forest, land, water and other
natural resources for their survival.
The socio-cultural and economic
lives of such people have now been
shattered affecting present and
future generations. Notable projects
to have caused greater livelihood
damage over the years, include
the Mansi-Wakal dam; cement
factory; Bisalpur irrigation project,
Tonk; Gosunda dam power project
Chittor; Son Kamla Amba irrigation
project, Dungarpur; Gandhi Sagar
dam power project, Kota; Kodarna
power and irrigation project,
Dungarpur; Jakham irrigation
project, Udaipur; Hindustan
Zinc, Udaipur; Rajasthan atomic
project, Kota; Mahibajaj Sagar
power project, Banswada; national
highway (NH) 8 and NH 76.
In the wake of globalisation SEZs are
being planned for further acquisition
of farmlands. The SEZ Act of 2005 is
being invoked to acquire land from
villagers. Three SEZs, two near Jaipur
and one in Jodhpur have become
operational. In addition, five others
have received formal approval and
10 others (including as many as seven
multi-product zones above 1,000