Abstract
This chapter explores reforms in environmental and resettlement policies in India and the influence of domestic and external actors on the reform process. It also analyses the ways in which environment and resettlement policies have been implemented in a number of hydropower projects. At macro level, the study begins by describing the multilevel processes that govern dam decision-making. It then considers changes regarding environmental clearance and resettlement, and the role which state and non-state actors played in the last three decades. At project level the analysis focuses on how state and non-state actors influence decision-making on the introduction of superior environmental and social standards through changes in policies and laws. The dam projects selected are the Allain Duhangan Project, the Lower Subansiri Project and the Dibang Multipurpose Project. The study argues that, at macro level, it is civil society which has been the major driver of change in the area of resettlement over the last three decades. In the environment arena the changes are the outcome of competing demands from civil society and growth-oriented ministries and departments of the Government of India. At project level, superior social and environmental standards are primarily driven by social movements. International actors like the International Finance Corporation also catalyse the reform process.
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Notes
- 1.
The Planning Commission is an apex planning body.
- 2.
http://www.nhpcindia.com/English/Scripts/Hydro_Initiative.aspx. Accessed 6 Aug 2010.
- 3.
Personal interview with a senior official in the power department in one of these states.
- 4.
The committee’s terms of reference included reviewing policy and programmes with significant environmental implications, advising government, departments and industry on mitigation measures, reviewing existing environmental legislation, regulation and administration, proposing cost-effective solutions to environmental problems, ensuring coordination between the environment and economic policies, promoting research on environmental problems and establishing research facilities wherever possible, increasing public awareness and cooperating with the UN and other international agencies in environmental programmes with global concerns (EPW Correspondent 1972b).
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
The Dibang Multipurpose Project had a site clearance based on the EIA Notification 1994. When the Government of India produced the 2006 EIA Notification, it set a period of 2 years (until September 2008) within which the project would be appraised under the 1994 EIA Notification if submitted to the MoEF. As the sustained local community agitation prevented the second obligatory public hearing in the Dibang Valley from being held by September 2008, it was decided at the EAC’s 27th meeting in June 2009 that the Dibang Project would have to reapply for the EIA study under the 2006 EIA Notification and also to hold fresh public hearings in the two districts. Thus the public hearing in the Lower Dibang Valley district was considered null and void under the new directions.
- 8.
This term was coined by R. Ramaswamy Iyer during the Sixth Dialogue on Water held in Bonn in September 2009.
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Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges the generous support of International Postgraduate Studies in Water Technologies (IPSWaT) for supporting the field research for this study. The author would like to thank Parthojyoti Das, Keshab Chatradhar, Tony Mikrows and Sunder Mahant for their help during the fieldwork. The author would also like to thank the many resource persons in India, who have enormously helped the author in developing a better understanding of environmental governance in India. Author acknowledges the help of Saptarshi Dey in creating a map depicting the study locations.The author would also like to thank Ramaswamy R. Iyer and Peter Mollinga for their comments on an earlier extended version of this chapter.
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Choudhury, N. (2014). Towards Responsible Hydropower Development through Contentious Multi-stakeholder Negotiations: The Case of India. In: Scheumann, W., Hensengerth, O. (eds) Evolution of Dam Policies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23403-3_4
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