Water Conflicts in Odisha: a Compendium of Case Studies
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The Forum and its Work WATERA CComOpNendFiuLmI oCf CTasSe ISNtud iOesDISHA The Forum (Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India) is an effort to bring together all those interested in working on issues related to water conflicts in India into a loose network for action and interaction. The Forum began its work towards the end of 2004 as a collaborative effort of a few organisations and independent researchers and was supported by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Presently the Forum has more than 150 organisations and individuals and the present phase of Forum's work is primarily supported by Arghyam Trust, Bangalore. The Forum's work covers edited by the four broad areas of conflict documentation, conflict resolution, Pranab R. Choudhury, Bhupesh C. Sahoo, Jinda Sandbhor, Suhas Paranjape, K. J. Joy, Shruti Vispute conflict prevention and network and outreach. Contact Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India c/o Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) 16, Kale Park, Someshwarwadi Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008 Maharashtra, India Phone: 0091-20-25880786, 25886542 Fax: 0091-20-25886542 Email: [email protected] URL://conflicts.indiawaterportal.org Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium of Case Studies Pranab R. Choudhury, Bhupesh C. Sahoo, Jinda Sandbhor, Suhas Paranjape, K. J. Joy, Shruti Vispute Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India February 2012 Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium of Case Studies Pranab R. Choudhury, Bhupesh C. Sahoo, Jinda Sandbhor, Suhas Paranjape, K. J. Joy, Shruti Vispute © Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune First published in February 2012 Supported by: ARGHYAM Trust, Bangalore Cover Design and Layout: Marion Jhunja Printed by: Mudra Published by: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune c/o Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) 16, Kale Park, Someshwarwadi Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008 Maharashtra, INDIA Tel: +91-20-2588 0786/ 2588 6542 Fax: +91-020-2588 6542 Email: [email protected] URL: http://conflicts.indiawaterportal.org Copies are available at the above address The contents of this report may be used with due acknowledgement of the source. Any form of reproduction, storage in a retrieval system or transmission by any means requires a prior written permission from the publisher. Citation: Choudhury Pranab R., Bhupesh C. Sahoo, Jinda Sandbhor, Suhas Paranjape, K. J. Joy, Shruti Vispute (Ed.), 2012, Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium of Case Studies, Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India. Contributory Price : Rs 200/- Contents Acknowledgements i Preface ii - vi Introductory Overview vii - xxi Case Study 1 SARA LAKE: Flood control vs. livelihood and wetland vs. university Tapan Padhi pg 1 - 6 Case Study 2 WATER CONFLICTS AROUND HIRAKUD DAM: Industry vs. Agriculture Pranab R Choudhury, Jinda Sandbhor and Bhupesh C Sahoo pg 7 - 15 Case Study 3 THE HATI-TEL DIVERSION: River-linking leads to flood Aditeswar Mishra pg 16 - 20 Case Study 4 THE KANHUPUR PROJECT ON THE BAITARANI: Delays cause conflict Kiran Sankar Sahu pg 21 - 25 Case Study 5 ANGUL-TALCHER REGION: Conflict over water and air pollution Ashis Kumar Das pg 26 - 35 Case Study 6 THE TALCHER COAL MINES: Black diamonds take precedence Santosh Kumar Mohanty pg 36 - 43 Case Study 7 IB RIVER POLLUTION: Conflict over pollution turns more complex Bimal Kumar Pandia pg 44 - 49 Case Study 8 BHEDEN: Rapid industrialisation and a dying river Mehboob Mehtab pg 50 - 55 Case Study 9 KOLAB POLLUTION: Community and industry in conflict over the reservoir K. Sudhakar Patnaik pg 56 - 63 Case Study 10 THE BRAHMANI: A polluted river, fishermen in crisis Sisir Tripathy pg 64 - 70 Case Study 11 UPCOMING MINING IN THE KHANDADHAR HILLS: Emerging conflict in Sundargadh district Himansu Sekhar Patra pg 71 - 79 Case Study 12 DELTA REGION IN KENDRAPARA DISTRICT: Riverbank erosion causes loss of livelihood Bijaya Kumar Kabi pg 80 - 86 Case Study 13 KELUA BADA GENGUTI DELTA REGION: Waterlogging causes a perennial flood like situation Bamadev Padhi pg 87 - 90 Case Study 14 INDRAVATI DAM: Impact on agriculture and livelihoods in undivided Koraput district Nrusingha Nanda Panigrahy pg 91 - 100 Case Study 15 THE LOWER SUKTEL CONFLICT: Delayed R&R and a threat of water theft Sanjaya Kumar Mishra pg 101-110 Case Study 16 RAJABANDHA TANK: A local conflict turns into an inter-state conflict Bikash Kumar Pati pg 111-117 Case Study 17 CONFLICT OVER THE MAHENDRA TANAYA: Barrage causes an inter-state conflict Bighneswar Sahoo pg 118-124 Case Study 18 INTER-STATE CONFLICT OVER THE JOURA: River or nallah? Bamadev Padhi pg 125-129 Case Study 19 GROUNDWATER MARKET IN BALASORE: Opportunities for the rich, marginalisation of the poor Bikash Kumar Pati pg 130-137 About Contributors pg 138-145 About Reviewers pg 146-147 Acknowledgements On behalf of the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (Forum) we would like to thank all those who have contributed to the preparation and production of 'Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium of Case Studies'. First of all we would like to thank all the authors. We are deeply grateful for their contribution, patient response and clarifications to our persistent queries. The critical remarks and suggestions from the peer reviewers comprising Prof. R M Mallick, Tapan Padhi, Prof. Smita Mishra Panda, Pranab R. Choudhury, Prof. S. Janakarajan, Suhas Paranjpe, K. J. Joy and Shripad Dharmadhikary greatly helped improve the case studies. We sincerely thank the reviewers for the kind cooperation, inspirational support and valuable inputs they provided in spite of their busy schedules. We acknowledge the contribution of the organisers and participants of the four regional workshops at Sambalpur, Jajpur, Keonjhar and Koraput. We thank MASS who co-hosted the workshop at Sambalpur, Prakalpa for their collaboration in the Keonjhar workshop and Jana Samiti and CDRT for their support at the Koraput workshop. These workshops helped us to identify the conflicts and potential authors. We are also thankful to the organisers and participants of write-shop held at Bhubaneswar during July 2010 which helped in sensitizing, mobilizing and motivating resource persons who were in the process of water conflict documentation. The documentation effort benefitted substantially from deliberations in the workshop on "Water Conflicts in Odisha: Issues and Way Forward" held at Bhubaneswar in March 2011, where all the case studies were critically discussed and comments were provided to all the authors. We are thankful to the participants of this Workshop who extended their intellectual support in making the workshop successful. We acknowledge the moral as well as physical support of Odisha Water Forum and the guidance from our State Steering Committee Members Achyut Das, Dr. R M Mallik, Dr. Shambu Prasad, Dr. Sisir Behera and Prof. Smita M. Panda in this initiative of documentation of water conflicts. We thank Priyabrata Satapathy and Suvendu Acharya, past team members of Odisha State Center, who co-ordinated and laid the foundation for this documentation in its initial phase. Priyabrata steered the process of documentation and the organising of all the workshops and coordinated with the authors, reviewers and other members of the Forum. We sincerely acknowledge the administrative support and guidance of Ranjan Mohapatra, Executive Director of Shristi, and support from Brahma Nanda Panda and Sukadev Dehury, who looked after the logistics of the workshops and documentation working silently behind the scenes. We are also grateful to Suchita Jain for working on the maps included in this compendium and the other SOPPECOM team members for their help in bringing out this compendium. We would like to acknowledge the financial support and encouragement provided by Arghyam Trust, Bangalore. Special thanks to Amrtha K. of Arghyam for her support and inputs in this effort. We thank Marion Jhunja for the cover and layout of the report and Mudra for its production. i Preface There is now a growing awareness of water conflicts. However, most of it is of the doomsayer variety, given the regularity with which it is predicted that the next or the third world war will be over water! However, this growing concern and anxiety is not matched by systematic work on documenting water conflicts. While individual cases have been studied intensely -- for example, the material available on the studies of the Narmada Bachav Andolan and the conflict around the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada River would comprise a bibliography running into several pages -- there is very little systematic and sustained effort at documenting water conflicts. The Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts (the Forum) has been engaged in a sustained initiative of documenting several kinds of water conflicts in India in several parts of the country as one of the components of all phases of its work. The present compendium of case studies of water conflicts in Odisha is part of the same initiative. In fact, the Forum owes its emergence to the first such attempt in India. In 2004, R. Doraiswamy and Biksham Gujja collected and put together the information on a few of the better known water conflicts in South India and published a summary of the cases as a small booklet called Understanding Water Conflicts: Case Studies from South India 1 . At a meeting called to discuss the booklet, it was decided to set up the Forum as a loose network-cum-platform and to continue the work on water conflicts. Today the Forum has more than 150 members -- individuals as well as organisations spread all over India. In its first phase, the Forum concentrated on the documentation of water conflicts in India at a national level. In that phase, the Forum documented 63 cases of water conflicts in India, concentrating on Peninsular India with the participation of nearly 100 authors.