Senior Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader and chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s closest aide, Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, MP, today slammed the Orissa government and the corporate houses for ignoring the interests of the people displaced by industrial projects in the state.
“The interests of the displaced people in Orissa have been neglected by the state government and the industrial houses. While the state government has not done the needful for these people, the industrial houses have failed to offer sustainable livelihood to them”, Mohapatra said here at a session on Rehabilitation & Resettlement (R&R) organized here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Taking a dig at the CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities of the industries, he said, terms like CSR are mere phrases coined by the corporates and do not provide long-term benefits to the affected people.
The BJD leader underscored the need to prepare inclusive and customized rehabilitation packages taking into account the interests of all the families affected by an industrial project.
“Each of the affected families has to be thought of while preparing the rehabilitation package. You cannot say that a farmer has been suitably rehabilitated if he is trained to become a skilled operator of any trade”, Mohapatra said.
“Any rehabilitation package which does not take into consideration the interests of all the affected families is a bogus package. Even the offer of job to at least one of the members of a displaced family cannot be termed a suitable rehabilitation measure”, he added.
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He called upon industries to focus on the promotion of agro-based industries and food processing industries apart from developing ancillary and downstream units.
Speaking on the occasion, Damodar Rout, the state minister for agriculture said, the people of Orissa have witnessed the hazards of industrialization but are yet to reap the benefits.
“The people of Paradeep have ceded over 17,000 acres of land for industrial projects in the region. However, no assessment or study has been conducted to find out the impact of industrialization on these land losers”, he added.
Rout pointed out that the people of any region in the state where the industrial projects are coming up are not industrially inclined and there is a possibility of these people being misled for ulterior motives.
SM Jaamdar, national consultant (R&R) of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said, “The peripheral development work should not be limited to infrastructure development alone. The concept of peripheral development needs to be broadened to ensure the complete well being of the affected people.”
Stating that R&R should not be clubbed with CSR, Jaamdar said, “CSR is a very loose concept and it cannot be a substitute for R&R. While CSR is a voluntary exercise, R&R is a compulsory activity which has to be included as a part of the project cost.”