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

The replacement of agriculture land is very low. This is most prevalent withthe paddy cultivators, where 90% have not replaced their paddy land. Landcultivated with cash crops show a slightly higher level of replacement. In afollow up after the first monitoring phase, cash crop households showed 65%of a recovery path. This reflects the importance of the agriculture incomesource to the household. Cash crops such as tea or cinnamon were a mainincome source and therefore replacement is vital for survival. On thecontrary, paddy is mainly for consumption and only the excess was sold fora supplementary income. The loss is felt less as a loss of income and moreas increased expenditure and therefore the replacement of paddy was not asvital as the replacement of cash crops.Non replacement of agricultural land has occurred due to reasons related tohousehold decision making. Many agricultural lands were of sharedownership and as such the compensation received was low.I wanted to buy a paddy land and I have looked for a paddy land. But mycompensation was not enough to buy as they asked 3 lakhs for the paddyland. Now, those paddy lands are very expensive.- Paddy farmer, HomagamaCommercial landsFrom the affected people sampled in the study, 1.5% were those who hadlost ‘commercial property’ or business premises. There were a diverse rangeof businesses: 48% were retail and wholesale, 28% agricultural and foodprocessing, mining and services, and 15% were manufacturing. As most ofthe establishments were informal, these activities were either conducted athome or very close to it. As a result they were directly affected by the landacquisition.Commercial enterprises are recovering at a slow pace. The phase 3 surveyfound that about 60% have decreased income, while the follow-up surveyfound that only 55% have restarted commercial activity. Often thereplacement is on a smaller scale than it was previously. The largerenterprises showed a greater tendency of restarting. A supporting factor forthis is larger compensation, on which they were able to subsist untilrecovery. In smaller enterprises, slower recovery is linked to the importanceof that income source to the household. This was evident where the primaryincome source of a household is a non commercial activity such asgovernment employment.50