Socio-Economic Impoverishment Risks in Displacement of Tribes 33 Under Polavaram Irrigation Project

Development through displacement is part and parcel of the ongoing process of planned development. Annually, on an average 10 million people across the globe are getting affected by forced displacement to accommodate different types of development projects. Among them, majority of the displaced belong to poor and marginalised sections of the society. The number of people so far displaced in India by different such projects range from 7.5 to 20 million. The involuntary displacement and resettlement often causes certain problems which have socio-economic and cultural implications. The objective of the paper is to understand and appreciate the nature and magnitude of social and economic risks of impoverishment being undergone by the project-affected tribal families in the event of their displacement. Impoverishment risk is examined with special reference to customary rights and privileges, land alienation and livelihood security. In the study area, it was found that many of the respondents were living in inaccessible areas that even lack minimum basic services and facilities. However, the newly constructed resettlement colonies with most of these facilities did not necessarily attract as a pull factor for them to leave their original habitat. Similarly, some of the study areas are often affected by floods and the respondents incur huge loss in physical property like houses, crops, plantations, trees etc. Even such situation leading to heavy losses do not voluntarily push them to move to safer places. Leaving apart some of the tribals who are landless and marginalised, others by and large expressed their emotional attachment to forest and land and want to stay back in their old habitat where they survived and thrived for several generations. But they are not left with any option.