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KEY TRENDS
• India is the third largest dam builder country in the world. It now has over 3600 large dams and over 700 more under construction*
• Displacement due to dams in India has been variously estimated. Fernandes, Das & Rao (1989) claimed that Indians displaced by dam projects numbered 21 million*
• Available estimates of people displaced by large and medium dams in India show that the 140 dams for which such figures are available, have displaced over 4.4 million people*
• Many researchers estimated that the number of people displaced due to big projects comes between 10 and 25 million. In an influential 1989 study, Fernandes, Das and Rao provide an estimate of some 21 million displaced persons. Scholar-administrator Dr. N. C. Saxena, places his estimate of persons displaced by big projects since 1947 at nearly double this figure — 50 million**
• India has adopted the policy of promoting the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) for faster industrial development. It needs about 50,000 hectares of agricultural land for SEZs and 1.49 lakh hectares for all projects which include also industrial, mining, irrigation and infrastructural projects***
• The Land Acquisition Act, 1894 of India is the primary legislation that provides for acquisition of land***
• Since independence at least 50 million people in India have been displaced by dams, mines, thermal power plants, corridor projects, field firing ranges, express highways, airports, national parks, sanctuaries, industrial townships, even poultry farms@
* Large Dam Projects and Displacement in India,
http://www.sandrp.in/dams/Displac_largedams.pdf
** Planning Commission titled Dams, Displacement, Policy and Law in India,
http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/articles/ncsxna/art_dam.pdf
*** Environment of Land Diversion, Displacement and Rehabilitation: A Study of Indian SEZs,
http://www.mse.ac.in/Frontier/w23%20Verma.pdf
@ The destruction of 'development' by Jaideep Hardikar, Infochange
http://infochangeindia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=6161
http://www.sacw.net/Nation/sezland_eng.pdf
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