Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- UA040316(5)

Action Requested || Sample Letter || Background
Please respond before 5 April 2004
Update

Summary

On 1st February 2004 the representatives of Sterlite Industries India Limited (Sterlite), a bauxite mining company, and the local police, forcibly evicted 35 households from a tribal village, Kinari, Kalahandi district of Orissa, northeast India. Villagers were transferred to a nearby hill slope and their entire village was bulldozed. These villagers have not yet received compensation and no time was given to them to make arrangements for moving their cattle.

This operation was abruptly undertaken, destroying the residents' ancestral village. The people only have the last crop as sustenance and no further livelihood. They were cordoned off by the local police like criminals and no one was permitted to meet them.

Many other villages like Kapaguda, Belamba, Turiguda, Sindhbahali, Boringpadar and Basantapada are strongly opposing Sterlite. They have pledged not to leave their land at any cost and have said that they would prefer to die rather than move out.

Action Requested

Write polite letters condemning these repressive acts of Sterlite. Request the authorities to:

1. follow proper procedures of phased rehabilitation of tribals who have lost their livelihood and ancestral lands, through the development projects;

2. cancel agreements with mining companies whose projects give adverse effects to the environment and people in the locality.

Sample Letter

Background

Orissa possesses 69.7% of the total bauxite deposits of India, mostly concentrated in K-B-K districts (Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi). Bauxite is used to make alumnium.

Mining Projects in Orissa
Larsen and Turbo:
In 1995, Larsen and Tubro started survey work in Siji mali and Kutru mali (Kashipur-Thuamal-Rampur blocks of Rayagada-Kalahandi). A proposed plant was to be set up at the village of Kusumsila, Sikarpai panchayat (local self-government at village level), Kalyansingpur block, district Rayagada. Due to strong opposition the company stopped its work.

Utkal Alumina Industries Ltd (UAIL):
The production of UAIL, currently a joint venture of ALCAN (Canada) and HINDALCO of Birla India, was originally scheduled to begin by 2002, but was rescheduled for 2005, due to people's agitation. The UAIL Project will source bauxite through open cast mining from Baphli mali of Maikanch Panchayat.

ALCAN, the Canadian multinational company under UAIL, faces a lawsuit worth billions of dollars from indigenous people at Kemano in British Columbia, Canada, for destroying their ancestral homeland through mining activities. The Aditya Birla group that owns HINDALCO has a notorious record of violating government environmental norms through their various project and causing environmental disasters that has affected local population.

National Aluminium Company (NALCO):
The NALCO bauxite project, just 100 kms away from Kashipur, made a profit of US$ 120 millon in 2002, which the tribals in the area did not benefit from.

Sterlite Industries India Ltd. (Sterlite):
The proposed alumina plant at Lanjigarh, District Kalahandi of Orissa under Sterlite is a one million ton export-oriented project with an investment cost of Rs. 4,500 crore (Rs. 45,000,000,000 or approx. USD 1,000 million). The plant will process the bauxite to be sourced from nearby Niyamgiri hill (5km south of Lanjigarh village) which has a reserve of 73 million ton. The company agrees that the project would last for 23 years.

Lanjigarh is the key project of Sterlite, whose finances come from its twin company, Vedanta Resources. Vedanta was launched on the London stock exchange in December 2003. It raised a record of $1 billion dollar for this Lanjigarh project. Both Sterlite and Vedanta are headed by a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Anil Agarwal and the chairman of the Sterlite is Brian Gilbertson, an Australian who is one of the world's wealthiest mine owners.

This project violates Acts that protect the development of the people in the area. Under the Panchayat Extension Act 1996, local governing bodies have the right to decide on the kind of development for their villages, but their decision was overruled by the state. Moroever, non-tribals taking over the land from the tribals is a violation to the Orissa Immovable Property Act 1956.


Social and Environmental Effects of Mining

It is claimed that the mining of Niyamagiri hill will result in Bansadhara and Nagabali rivers drying up. This would affect more than 100,000 people and nearly twenty thousand people of two panchayats who are directly dependant on Niyamgiri for livelihood. Niyamgiri's topography is also ecologically sensitive for the rain in this area.

One of the by-products of open cast mining is the piling up of solid effluents such as red mud. If these effluents are stacked in large open ponds, it is estimated to cause nearly 150 tons of sodium hydroxide to be leached into the soil everyday. This will raise the pH levels of the soil in the region much beyond the permissible limits. The soil will become loose and unstable.

Rivers and streams surrounding the mining projects will begin to dry up, resulting in desertification of the area, leading to landslides, flash floods, loss of natural habitat for flora and fauna, and loss of cultivable land and forest resources sustained by indigenous communities.

The Sterlite will have its alumina refinery plant near the mining site. This plant would displace nearly 60 families of two villages and affect 302 families of 12 villages of two panchayats. The plant would require 1789.54 hectares of land out of which 1109.41 hectares is private land.

Tribal communities living in the region are presently self sufficient. From the experiences of resettled oustees from the neighbouring NALCO project, the scale of displacement is huge and only a few benefited from job offers. Most of the affected people are unable to buy cultivable land and are forced to spend their lives in small shacks in ill-planned resettlement colonies. They are not prepared for life ruled by state and market forces and are highly vulnerable to exploitation and violence.


Struggle against Sterlite

When the people at Kalahandi district learned about the proposed alumina plant in June 2002, nearly one thousand people assembled and registered 199 individual petitions at the office of Revenue Inspector, demanding cancellation of the proposed project. A memorandum was also submitted to the chief minister of Orissa, opposing the project.

In April 2003, a mass meeting was organized under the banner of Niyamgiri Suraksya Samiti (Committee for the Protection of Niyamgiri or NSS) at Sindhbahali village near Basantapada. People from 25 villages attended and took an oath to resist the Sterlite, stating: "it is a question of survival for us". They sent a memorandum to the chief minister of Orissa, objecting his decision of handing over the ancestral land to Sterlite. However, the project's foundation stone was laid on 8 June 2003, with heavy police protection to prevent people from protesting. The people fear that more harassment and attacks would take place as they continue their struggle against Sterlite.

In November 2003, NSS, together with other anti-displacement organizations from all over India, went on a protest against the 19th World Mining Congress in New Delhi, when the Indian government invited several multi national companies.

Source:
Hotline India, local sources and supporters

Other information:
Map of Orissa:
http://mapsofindia.com/maps/orissa/orissa.htm

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