The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: January 26, 1998

Author: Dinesh Agrawal

Fax: +91 11 436 1266

Email: dinesh.agrawal@lead.sprintrpg.ems.vsnl.net.in

It is a path leading from economic deficiency to surfeit; social disorder to equity; dependency to self sufficiency. The path was not unknown but required a dedicated effort to bring it into limelight and create an awareness among the targeted population.

This concept was originally conceived Dr. P. R. Mishra and implemented at village Sukhomajri near Chandigarh in the hills of Shivalik range, and further replicated successfully in Palamau, the most backward area of Bihar with extreme social chaos and abject poverty. However, there were no outside interventions and no dependency syndrome.

The concept evolves around the age old principal of optimal utilization of basic ingredients of nature i.e. land, water, air, and sun with the involvement of the communities, which not only create economic wealth but also bring these components of the nature back into their pristine condition, even if they are in degraded condition. What is more important is the changes brought in by this concept for ensuring social cohesiveness.

Thus this concept, not only creates the economic wealth but also an environmental and social wealth for ensuring long-term sustainable development This is achieved through the involvement of the local community and by creating institutional mechanism within which it works in a totally transparent manner. The features like thrift, transparency, equity are the inherent characteristics of this concept.

In the present case, efforts were made to replicate this concept for rehabilitation of the project affected persons at National Capital Power Project (NCPP), Dadri of National Thermal Power Project located in distt. Gaziabad of Uttar Pradesh, India which has certain inherent issues of high expectations alongwith dependency syndrome and outside interventions. The land in and around the project suffers from land degradation, soil erosion, salty soil and poor utilization of natural resources and social in-cohesiveness.

The present initiative was to extend this concept as rehabilitation measure for ensuring the improvement or at least restoration of livelihood of PAPs through community approach. The concept has an intrinsic strength of self propagation even to nearby communities and villages.

The author is heading the rehabilitation and resettlement cell of the NTPC at corporate center and responsible for planning, coordination and the supervision of R&R activities of NTPC projects all over India.

The land in the area is of poor quality affected by the salt peter and the land productivity is low. The local populace is uneducated and under-employed, thus the time resource available is often diverted towards unproductive work. The situation became complex when NTPC decided to set up a coal and gas based power projects at Dadri with dedicated merry-go-round (MGR) railway track to nearest rail station for bringing coal.

This changed the social and economic environment from rural to neo-industrial-semi urban along with associated changes. People had a high expectation of vibrant souring local economy, employment in the project etc. which fueled their aspirations and developed into dependency syndrome. This severely affected the physical and mental self-reliance and reduced the zeal of individuals to make any efforts for self-reliance to abysmal level. This also adversely affected the relationship between the project and the local populace.

Thus, there was a need to address this issue which otherwise would have continued to adversely affect the local community socially and economically with the resultant effect on the relationship between the project and the local community.

There were agitation and consultations in the past and an agreement was reached to provide and enhance the community facilities in the affected villages which are under implementation. Further, as per the R&R policy of May'93, a retrofit socio-economic survey was carried out to establish the base line data through IIT, Kanpur. Based on the survey and the earlier agreement, a comprehensive Remedial Action Plan (ReAP) was formulated. The ReAP mainly focused on the provision of basic community infrastructure in the affected villages. Many training programs and limited Income Generating Schemes were promoted for the benefit of individuals. This resulted in rising expectations of PAPs to get more benefit from NTPC on the individual basis and at the same time, the precious land resource and the human resource remained idle.

It was necessary that the people should identify their own potential and the potential of their land rather than developing a never ending dependency syndrome.

It was necessary that approach of NTPC be that of catalyst to initiate a process with which the people achieve the self reliance. Therefore, the project was initiated on a pilot basis and not on full scale to break the growing dependency of PAPs on the NTPC.

The Chakriya Vikas Pranali means Cyclic Mode of Development, i.e. the benefit from one investment becomes the capital investment for the next, and thus the cycle moves on to provide economic and social benefits and make the community self reliant.

The CVP creates a common pool of degraded land. The soil and water conservation techniques are applied. Whole community is involved irrespective of their economic or the social status and the produce is shared in an equitable manner. The sharing system has an built in equity for each individual, the community and also the future, so important for sustainability of the development. The sharing of gains are as below:

The 30% share to he students(participants working on the pool)

The 30% to the land owner who pool their land

The 30% share to Gram Kosh (Village fund) for social and economic development of the village.

The 10% share to Kalyan Kosh

The pooled land includes the marginal fragmented land and the land owners, who willingly give their degraded land as the system ensures that the land remain their property. The students are generally the landless idle human resources as also the committed supporters of the concept. Multi-tiered and multi-rooted planting system is adopted. The selection of plant species is based on the soil quality, water availability and local demand and is decided by the Community.

The institutional setup includes establishing a community based organization called "Gram Samaj" i.e. Village Community for taking the decisions in a consultative and participative manner. All funds are managed by the "Gram Samaj", regularly audited and are open for scrutiny. The Chakriya Vikas Vidyalaya(School of Cyclic Development) is then set up, which imparts training and technical support for conservation techniques and the multi-tier, multi-cropping system of production. The school also propagates the concept to other local villages. The students gets a daily honorarium and also 30% share from the net economic gains. The Gram Kosh is used for extending interest free loans to participants, opening more avenues for income generating schemes, various developmental activities and remove dependency for any government or outside assistance and develop sense of dignity and self reliance. The Kalyan Kosh is used for extending and propagating this concept to other near by villages.

A new wave of awareness has been created in the villages around the project where more and more people have shown their inclination to adopt this concept in their villages without any assistance or the involvement of NTPC. This itself is the biggest achievement. The major achievements can be summarized as below:

Promoting the self reliance and breaking the dependency syndrome on the project proponent, the local government and also the vagaries of the nature.

Creating social cohesiveness of the social fabric.

Putting the idle resources (waste land and the human) to productive use.

Improving the economic base of the individuals and the community as a whole.

The lessons and simple and the repetition of age old wisdom described through the numerous publication over a period of time.

The success of the development lies in making the communities self reliant through preservation and optimal harvesting of natural resources and embedding the concept into the social fabric of the community. Whereas, the concept of industrial development is totally opposite where the individual's efforts are more important, all others become the dependent on the project proponent and the social fabric of the community is disturbed. The feelings of competition with each other, desire for more materialistic benefits than others or even at the cost of others overrules the principle of caring and sharing with humanistic approach.

The problem is not in setting up the mega industrial projects but addressing the basic issues of creating a pseudo-dependency on the project which leads to dependency syndrome.

In each success story, there is a person or persons from within the community who is/are not a great planner or leader but a person with a vision and conviction, who lays the foundation of the concept in that area, often in the situation of distress. But, the present case proves that such plans can be implemented with the conviction in a fully developed area as well.

I would also like to raise few issues here which crop up in my mind repeatedly while addressing such issues:

Why planners always look towards something new? Are they searching for Einstein who will give a magic formula for development or they want to divert the attention from their in action by looking for some thing new?

Why the innumerable examples of isolated success stories could not be greatly replicated any where in the world?

Why is the development treated in a totally mechanized styles like design and construction of projects with minute details of each sub-activity of the plans and not in a humane approach.

Why are the achievements judged with the economic success of the plan rather than the social development of the plan.

Why don't the great planners go to field and create impressions on the society rather than on the paper.