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

to fall among the households of this category. However, thepost-displacement information presented in Figure 3 includes previouslysaved income and relief as defined by Amirthalingam and Lakshman(forthcoming). Without these added inputs the Asset Holder plight wouldhave been even graver.IDPs who were Type I and Type II Labour before displacement, thoughwitnessing a decline in their incomes, have not been affected as badly bydisplacement as the Asset Holders. We believe that this is because of the factthat the main livelihood endowment of these categories − human capital −is mobile. It was argued earlier that Type II Labour, to be able to generatemaximum livelihood income, depended on other complementary assets orcommon property such as paddy fields and sea. Section 5, in elaborating thecase of Household 9, discusses the difficulties faced by agricultural labourersin displacement. A similar situation prevails in the case of fisheries sectorlabourers too.The sea is quite distant from most of the IDP camps in Batticaloa. In theprevailing security situation the Type II fisheries sector labourers are notprepared to travel far in search of work. Then there are two camps −Kurukkalmadam and Palameenmadu − located in close proximity to the sea.These camps have accommodated fisherfolk from Sampur. However,Kurukkalamadam is traditionally a village of the Vellalar caste, which doesnot normally engage in fishing. In view of this strong social restriction theIDPs in this village, even if they have the skill and human capital, cannotengage in fishing. In Palameenmadu the problem is entirely different. In thatvillage the fishing technique is different to what the Sampur fishermen arefamiliar with. These are the practical reasons why Type II Labour is notgenerating livelihoods for the IDPs in Batticaloa.On the basis of Figure 3, incomes of the Government Servants were the leastaffected. The reasons for this were explained in detail when we discussedthe case of Household 66 in Section 5. Reasons such as attachment alsoexplain why the income of Government Servants have been resilient in theface of displacement. However, this does not mean that they have been ableto escape from impoverishment that set in after displacement. The figuredoes not say anything about the expenses incurred. Though incomes of theGovernment Servant IDPs have not declined as much as the others, there isanecdotal evidence that their expenses have soared 15 . For instance after15 In this study due to data gathering difficulties we have not collected expenditure information.77