Dear All
During the period of Oct-Dec 2018, one paper on "LAND
UTILIZATION WITH REHABILITATION & RESETTLEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT' has been published and brief details of the same were posted below as:
Initiatives
Author is very much connected with
such processes for over three decades and has taken up several initiatives in
this direction. Some of the key initiatives include:
- Awareness
and Advocacy on the importance of Land and its utilities.
- Mapping of Soil,
Land and Natural Resources by deploying Geotools.
- Suggestions
and measures to protect the Land and other Natural Resources.
- Suggestions
and measures to Farmers for better input supports, production, productivity,
product making and marketing.
- Need to
minimize the land for dumping of waste &other pollutants and ways to
make product out of waste.
- Selection
of suitable site for dumping of wastes from Domestic, Industries, Mining,
- Use of
technologies for effective transfer of knowledge / knowhow / learning’s
from Lab to Land.
- Organizing
of trainings, workshops, and seminars to various stakeholders.
- Documentation
and its sharing & dissemination to several groups through various
forums including e-forums.
- Paper
presentations and publication at various forums of National and
International.
Conclusions
In view of increase in population
and higher demand for land for various purposes, the present study has gained
priority and conclusions emerged include:
- Land is one
of the primary natural resources which supports and protects every
activity of all living and non living things. It also supports for the
production of several conventional and unconventional resources &
energies.
- In the
process of moving towards the achievement of Sustainable Developmental
Goals (SDGs), the Land, the most precious natural resource gains priority
to support people and environment.
- Population,
Land and Development are the cause and consequences of each other.
Increase in population demands for more services and supports in the form
of development which further puts more pressure on Land / Earth.
Unfortunately there is no scope for the increase in Land.
- Among land
utilities, cropped land dominates other type of utilities.
- Every
development essentially requires land for various purposes and some of
them includes: water bodies, residential, agriculture, transport,
recreation, community, industries, commercial, infrastructure, water based
projects, power projects, mining, education, health care, waste dumping,
forests, and all other man made activities.
- In general
people are not against any developmental activity but expect that it
should work for health and wealth of the People and Environment.
- It is up to
the Authorities to convince the affected people with realties on the
nature & type of project, processes, outputs, impact and benefits to
the people.
- The shift
from People Oriented Development (POD) to Business Oriented Development
(BOD) demands more land and other related resources.
- The processes
of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG) covering both
positive and negative aspects has to be accepted which certainly puts more
pressure on land.
- In majority
of the developmental projects whether it is POD or BOD, while utilizing the
land and other resources, people and environment will get affected with
various challenges.
- Some of the
challenges with the land utilities include: erosion & shrink age,
increase in wasteland, loss of fertility, demand for RITCM (residential, industries,
transport, commercial, mining & recreation), mining, dumping &
pollution, increase in density, subsidence, infrastructural development,
hazards & disasters, low production & productivity, land
acquisition, and other consequences.
- All such
challenges cumulatively results for loss of land & fertility,
subsidence, poor food security, and others affecting the health and wealth
of the people (particularly women) and environment.
- These
challenges of land utilities are alarming and the need of the hour is to
look for better management as a solution.
- There
exists several opportunities to minimize these challenges and to manage
the land along with other resources for aching the vision and mission of
the Nation.
- Some of the
key opportunities includes land mapping, accessible database, allocation
& management, acquisition – policies, resettlement &
rehabilitation, social auditing, eco-friendly from product to disposal,
use of natural resources, use of technologies, increase in the mode of PPP
and PPNP, control on population, use of non-conventional energies, shift
from BOD to POD and other need based matching to the dynamics of the given
community & environment.
- To work
with many of the opportunities, the Rehabilitation & Resettlement Act
2013 provides guidelines for the land utilizes and its acquisition &
allocation for primarily People Oriented Development (POD).
- There is a
need to shift from PPP to PPNP for better understanding of the local
resources and utilities for better identification, assessment and allocation
along with monitoring & evaluation from time to time.
- CSR
initiatives should work for the empowerment of the people both socially
and economically.
- Social
Auditing helps the Government, Investors and People for better
accountability and transparency.
- Grievance
mechanism will improve the confidence level of the People (especially
women) and PAPs to accept and participate in the processes of the
developmental projects.
- The
participation of NGOs / CSOs will support for the bottom up approaches with
the people, for the people and by the people.
- The Quality
of Life (QOL) of the PAPs and other affected people should be much better
after displacement when compared to that of what they had before shift.
- The RR
benefits should be attractive so that people & PAPs will come forward
to be part of the developmental projects with ownership.
- The models
and initiatives are simple, replicable, scalable, reliable and sustainable
and flexible matching to the dynamics of the given environment.
Recommendations
The study made has gained priority
and to move forward the following recommendations were made as:
- Better
mapping of Land and its Utilities with accessible & affordable Database.
- Awareness
cum Advocacy to share and disseminate the details of the Developmental
Projects, outputs, impact, benefits and challenges.
- Encourage
Students for Projects Works and Research on outputs / impact of
Developmental Projects and Rehabilitation & Resettlement.
- Better use
of Geotools, E-Technologies, GIS, and Geotagging with better Visibility,
Security and Resolution.
- Encourage Community
Initiatives with better participation and ownership with preparedness for
Risk Reduction.
Support
NGOs to work with the processes of Rehabilitation and Resettlement on
Partnership with Government and Private (PPNP).
..................................................................................
Looking forward .....
With thanks
