Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement — Policy and ... - CEPA

1 IntroductionThe Southern Transport Development Project (STDP) is the first controlledaccess expressway project to be built in Sri Lanka. It covers a distance of128 kilometres from Kottawa to Matara and is designed initially as afour-lane dual carriageway, with provision for expansion into six laneswithout any further land acquisition. The project is funded by theGovernment of Sri Lanka (GoSL), the Japan Bank for InternationalCo-operation (JBIC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Theresettlement activities were guided by a Resettlement Implementation Plan(RIP) which was finalised in October 2002 2 . The RIP is based on inventory oflosses (IOL) surveys and sets out the policies, procedures, entitlements,implementation responsibilities and monitoring and evaluation arrangementsrelating to land acquisition and resettlement under the project.According to the Position Report presented by the STDP to the ProjectCoordinating Committee (on January 16, 2007 3 ), 10,271 lots were acquiredfor the expressway Right of Way (RoW). An estimated 1,338 families havebeen displaced due to land acquisition for the STDP. The land acquisitiondisplaced households as well as livelihoods.Three types of livelihood activities were affected under the STDP.Agricultural land utilised for paddy and cash crop cultivation such ascinnamon, tea, rubber and pepper amounted to 77% of the total losses.Small commercial activities such as shops and medium scale activities suchas mills and quarries are included under commercial property losses. About122 persons who have lost commercial establishments have been identified.Home based activities are largely informal. About one-third of displacedhouseholds were recognised as having a livelihood activity that would bedisrupted due to the change in location of the household, and paid a loss ofemployment allowance. Such identified activities related to small-scaleentrepreneurial activities (47%) and location specific wage labour orservices (30%), as well as home gardening and livestock rearing (23%). Inalmost all cases these activities were a secondary source of income, withonly 10% of cases in which the micro-enterprise or wage labour was the solesource of income 4 .23http://www.adb.org/Documents/Resettlement_Plans/SRI/Southern_Transport/default.aspPosition Report on ADB and JBIC sections in STDP as at 31/12/2006, PCC meeting 16thJanuary, 2007.4CEPA note on House and Property Livelihoods.44