Floods, Fields and Factories: Towards Resolving Conflicts around the Hirakud Dam Pranab Choudhury, Jinda Sandbhor, Priyabrata Satapathy Odisha State Resource Centre Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India August 2012 Floods, Fields and Factories: Towards Resolving Conflicts around the Hirakud Dam Pranab Choudhury, Jinda Sandbhor, Priyabrata Satapathy © Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune Supported by: ARGHYAM Trust, Bangalore Cover Design and Layout by: 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 Published in August 2012 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, Jinda Sandbhor, Priyabrata Satapathy, 2012, Floods, Fields and Factories: Towards Resolving Conflicts around the Hirakud Dam, Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India. Contributory Price : Rs 200/- Contents Acknowledgements i - ii Executive Summary iii - x Chapter 1: Introduction 1-6 Chapter 2: Research Methodology 7-9 Chapter 3: Floods and the Building of Hirakud dam 10-20 Chapter 4: Understanding Water Conflicts around Hirakud 21-28 Chapter 5: The Hirakud Catchment: Changing Conditions and Impact on Inflows 29-37 Chapter 6: The Hirakud Reservoir: Changing Conditions, Allocations and Incomplete Rehabilitation 38-61 Chapter 7: The Hirakud Command: Increasing Shortages, Changing Crop Patterns and Deprivation of Tail Reaches 62-72 Chapter 8: Policy Changes 73-84 Chapter 9: Stakeholder Analysis 85-103 Chapter 10: Stakeholder Consultations 104-111 Chapter 11: Conclusions and Recommendations 112-124 References 125-130 Acknowledgements On behalf of the Odisha State Resource Centre of the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (Forum) we would like to express our gratitude to all those who have directly and indirectly encouraged and supported the action research on the conflicts around Hirakud dam and the production of this Action Research Report. Farmers, Pani Panchayat members, village youth and women in the Sason Command have shared their critical insights with us and sincerely helped us during our field visits. No words can express our heartfelt acknowledgement for their support. All those who participated in and helped us organise the three stakeholder consultations deserve our utmost appreciation for educating us by sharing their perspectives. We have also gained immensely from the different meetings and rallies we attended and our interactions with farmers, fishermen, villagers, journalists, citizen forums and civil society well wishers. We whole heartedly acknowledge the information, physical support and inspiration they provided. We would like to record our greatest appreciation of the members of the Hirakud Sub- Committee (formed to guide the action research) - Prof. Durga Prasad Nayak, academician and expert on Hirakud; Prof. Arttabandhu Mishra, academician and river expert; Dillip Padhi, leader of the Sambalpur Citizen Forum; Ashok Pradhan, Farmer leader, Paschim Odisha Krishak Sammannaya Sangha; and Lingaraj Pradhan, Farmer Leader, Paschim Odisha Krishak Sammannaya Samiti for their guidance and contribution. Our special thanks to Karunakar Supakar, Murari Prashad Purohit, Saroj Mohanty, Gopinath Majhi, and Ranjan Panda of Water Initiative for their constant support and critical inputs. We are also grateful to the Hirakud dam management officials and the officials of the Water Resources Department, Government of Odisha at Bhubaneswar for their support in providing valuable information and access to important official documents. We acknowledge all those who participated in and helped us organise the regional workshops at Sambalpur which widened our initial vision and laid the foundation of our work on the Hirakud project. We thank the NGOs Odisha River Network and MASS from Sambalpur region, for co-hosting the workshop at Sambalpur. We are also thankful to the participants of the workshop on "Water Conflict in Odisha: Issues and Way Forward" held at Bhubaneswar in March 2011 for making it a huge success. In this workshop the issues around Hirakud were critically discussed and deliberated upon by academicians, farmers' groups and fishing communities of Sambalpur helping us chart our future course of action. We sincerely acknowledge the support of the Steering Committee of the Forum -- Prof. Janakarajan, Prof. Chandan Mahanta, Dr. Latha Anantha, Shripad Dharmadhikari, Eklavya Prasad, Dr. Vinod Goud, Dr. Partha Das, Suhas Paranjape and K. J. Joy for their inputs. We would also like to thank Prof. M. K. Ramesh for his guidance. We acknowledge the moral as well as physical support provided by the Odisha Water Forum and the guidance from our State Steering Committee Members -- Achyut Das, Dr. R. M. Mallik, Dr. Shambhu Prasad, Dr. Sisir Behera, and Prof. Smita M. Panda in this Action Research initiative. i We are also thankful to Priyabrata Satapathy and Suvendu Acharya, past team members of Odisha State Centre who coordinated the project work in its initial phase. 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 among many other things looked after the logistics of the various workshops and meetings. We are also grateful to SOPPECOM team members for their help in bringing out this work. This report would have not been possible without the constant follow ups and critical editorial inputs of Suhas as well as reminders from Joy and the constant effort put in by Shruti in the follow up of continuous revisions and preparing the material for publication. They are the real force behind this project as well as this action research and report. We thank Marion Jhunja for the design and layout of the report and Mudra for its production. We would like to acknowledge the financial support and encouragement provided by Arghyam Trust, Bangalore. Special thanks to Amrtha Kasturirangan of Arghyam for her enthusiastic support and inputs. ii Executive Summary Introduction In its current phase of work, the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (henceforward, Forum), a network of people and organisations working on water conflicts in India, took up resolution and prevention of water conflicts as a focus area, along with networking and raising awareness and documentation of water conflicts in India. One of the objectives of the Odisha State Resource Centre of the Forum, established at the Baitarani Initiative, Shristi, Bhubaneswar in 2008 in collaboration with the Odisha Water Forum was to engage with the conflicts around the Hirakud dam, especially the industry-agriculture conflict, through action research aimed at contributing towards methodologies and raising awareness for conflict resolution. This action research report is the output of more than three years of that engagement. It maps the variegated issues contributing to the water conflicts around the Hirakud reservoir, brings together the response of policy makers and stakeholders, and suggests options and methodologies for initiating and creating preconditions for resolving the conflict. The Hirakud dam in Odisha has been viewed as a symbol of India’s post- independence developmentalism. The recent conflict is largely seen as one between the farmers in the Hirakud command and the Government of Odisha over the allocation of water from the reservoir to industries. However, the water conflicts around Hirakud are more complex. They are part of a classic contestation over natural resources in fast-developing countries with neoliberal policies pushing reforms and favouring industries and the market, while local communities struggle to maintain their livelihoods and institutions. Objectives and Methodology The main objective of the action research was to engage with conflicts around the Hirakud dam, study their inter-relations, and contribute to methodologies for resolving the conflict and raising awareness. The Odisha State Centre of the Forum proposed to do this by interfacing with local civil society groups, social movements and other stakeholders, bringing them together, understanding the other interconnected conflicts around the Hirakud dam, learning from the experience, and raising awareness about the issues. The methodologies deployed for data collection included data collection from secondary sources, reviews, primary field surveys and observations, in depth interviews and Focussed Group Discussions (FGD) with stakeholders and groups as well as ethnographic studies. Secondary data has been collected from news articles, research papers, government reports/archives, legislations, government policies and other archival data relevant for the project and discussions with experts. Stakeholder dialogues, workshops and consultation and presentations iii were utilised for exploring stakeholder perceptions about the conflicts around Hirakud and their resolution. Stakeholders with whom extensive