what were the reasons for the opposition by the environmentalist despite their opposition why the government was interested in the setting of the Steel plant in Orissa
Answers
Answer:
The liberalisation process that started in India in the early
1990s has made Orissa potentially the most attractive
destination for large capital-intensive projects by
private-sector firms – typically mineral-based ones.
These projects are facing opposition from the people,
especially those likely to be displaced and those who
will be indirectly affected. At the same time, the state’s
woes – poverty and unemployment – remain to be
addressed. Against this backdrop, this article examines
– both analytically and empirically – the path taken by
the three important sectors of the state: agriculture,
industry, and mining. Based on an inter-district and
inter-state panel analysis, the paper highlights the
serious decline in the Orissa’s agricultural sector – still
the only significant determinant of per capita income in
the state – while the mining sector, be it in production
or exports, has flourished.
I dedicate this article to the memory of activist Rajendra Sarangi, a
younger-brother-like-friend who passed away on 27 March 2008 and
who had encouraged and pushed me – even with data, clippings, and
information – to write this article, after I had pleaded my inability to
get into uncharted waters. I also thank Sakti Padhi, whose death on
2 March 2010 stripped Orissa of its greatest economic thinker and the
most uncompromising economist of the current era, for extensive
discussion and insights.
I acknowledge helpful comments from Birendra Nayak, Sudhir
Pattanaik, Kishor Samal, and other participants at the Third Ashok Babu
Memorial Lecture (2006) organised by Loka Samabaya Pratisthan at
Lohia Academy Trust, Bhubaneswar (where the first version of this paper
was presented) as well as from participants at a talk by the author in
October 2007 at the Ecumenical Centre and International Residence,
Ann Arbor, US.
Banikanta Mishra ([email protected]) teaches finance at the
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. Part of this work was
completed while the author was visiting faculty at the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, US
I
n a reasonably sensational revelation, it was disclosed in July
2007 – through a written reply by the Orissa steel and mines
minister in the assembly – that the Bhubaneswar Club in
Orissa – mainly an IAS officers’ recreation club, which is registered
as a company – had bid for the Khandadhar mines in the state.
The club filed its application for Khandadhar around the same
time that Posco signed an MoU with the state government for
establishing a steel facility at Paradeep (Mishra 2007).
Exactly two years later, in July 2009, the “mining scam” created
an uproar in the assembly. “The Government was in the dock
for letting a private company operate in certain mines without
(a) proper lease” (New Indian Express 2009e).
“For years now, mining companies have gotten rich supplying
the raw materials that have fuelled consumer booms from China
and India to Brazil.... The resulting megaminers would have
great influence over the cost of raw materials like iron ore,
copper and uranium – and, by extension, the price of consumer
electronics, cars and new apartment blocks” (Barta and Matthews
2007). And, these megaminers are some of the prominent entities
that want “industrialisation” of India and its states like Orissa,
independent of what their governments want.
People versus Projects
It is in the light of these “power plays” of corporations that one
needs to view events like the Kalinganagar massacre in Orissa at
the outset of 2006, where, in one of the most startling incidents
of state excess under a supposedly democratic government,
12 tribals laid down their lives while protesting specifically
against the beginning of construction work by Tata Steel – but
generally against that area’s reckless “industrialisation” that
entailed their forceful eviction. Barely eight months after that,
in the very same year, Orissa was given the India Today “gold medal”
for, inter alia, being, among the Indian states, the “fastest mover
in prosperity” (Orissadiary 2006a) of the people and the government, despite having the second highest unemployment rate,
both rural and urban, in 2004-05 as per the 61st round of
the National Sample Survey (Government of India 2009b). The
message in the inherent paradox is clear: cherish (big industries)
or perish. One only hopes that the gold medal does not turn into
golden handcuffs, getting Orissa stuck to its current berserk
journey on the path of the dangerous kind of industrialisation,
resistance to which has been raising its head throughout the
state and also in other states.
hope it helps you mate keep smiling good evening