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Power Plant and Deep Sea Port in Maheshkhali

Human catastrophe likely

Ansarul Karim
Maheshkhali, lying along the coast of Cox's Bazar, has enormous development potential that can contribute to national economy. Recently, the area has attracted news headlines because of the government's decision to establish a deep-sea port between Sonadia Island and Maheshkhali proper, and build coal and LNG based thermal power plant. MOUs between the financers and the government agencies are being negotiated to implement those mega projects. The government has also declared the area as an energy hub.
Power System Master Plan (PSMP) envisages that dependency of electricity generation by using natural gas, which is diminishing quickly, will be reduced by diversifying fuel use. According to the PSMP, 50% of fuel should come from coal by 2030. The government, therefore, considered establishing coal and LNG based thermal power plant of about 10,000 MW at Maheshkhali, which will be based on imported coal.
The country has a discovered stock of 3.3 billion tons of high quality coal reserve, so coal power units can be built near coal mines instead of concentrating them in one area. However, the wrong notion of some top policy makers that the areas where those power plants will be established are all "wasteland" (which is not true) probably prompted them to go ahead with acquiring land without studying the socioeconomic and environmental impact of the proposed development projects.
Initially, the programme to set up such projects at Maheshkhali received positive response from local people who hoped for socioeconomic improvement. But the way the government authorities acquired land without appropriate rehabilitation plan has caused anger and a sense of deprivation among the local community.
In Bangladesh, land acquisition has always been a difficult and delicate issue due to limited land resources and one of the highest population densities of the world. The proposed power plants and LNG terminal at Maheshkhali will need a big chunk of land. According to newspaper reports, the government plans to acquire about 10,000 acres of land, which are mostly shrimp and salt bed category and also a small area of agriculture category. Much more land will be needed when the deep-sea port is built. The environmental impact of such projects will also be very high due to increased concentration of SPM with harmful gases in the air and increased pollution load of the water in the vicinity of the project area.
The size of Maheshkhali upazilla is estimated to be about 140 mi2 with a population of about 4 lacs, and a shrimp and salt area of 12,970 acres. More than 80% of the local resident population is dependent on the shrimp and salt land. Only 10%-15% of the salt producers produce from their own lands. The remaining are landless labourers working on other people's land, and some are engaged in transporting salt. Thus they are tied to salt lands for their livelihood. Shrimp production and transportation also employs a large number of people. So, acquiring the proposed area will displace about 50- 60 thousand families from their lands and livelihood.
Recently, the deputy commissioner of Cox's Bazar notified the land owners of acquisition of their land under Land Acquisition Act 1982 (LAA). As per this law, only the recorded land owners - a small fraction of the affected people - will be entitled to get compensation (only 10%-15 % will be included for monetary compensation).Vast majority of the affected people will not be benefited by the present land acquisition process. These people will enter into a cycle of unemployment and permanent poverty, which may result in theirmigration to inland areas as destitute and cause social disintegration.
Bangladesh is a land-starved country. The lands to be acquired for the plants are highly productive multi-crop land used for salt production during dry season and shrimp cultivation during rainy season. Annual income from these lands is much higher compared to income from national average agricultural land. Due to proposed acquisition of land about l/6th of the total salt production land of the country' will come down, resulting in annua) deficit of salt production and increasing dependency on imported salt. Land acquisition of such a magnitude will also result in loss of shrimp production, affecting foreign exchange earnings.
There appears to be no transparent and integrated process of determining minimum land requirement for the projects in Maheshkhali. The project proponents made their own proposal for acquisition separately. It appears that PDB proposal for acquiring land for the thermal power plants is very high (1 acre/MW) in comparison with neighbouring countries ((0.31 acre/MW in Indonesia and 0.2 to 0.36/MW in India). This questions the rationale of acquisition of such a large area. A transparent and comprehensive procedure for minimising land acquisition can save loss of productive lands and livelihood of the dependent population.
At present, there is no statutory policy for resettlement and rehabilitation of livelihood of the people affected by the project. The only legislation, the LAA 1982, also deprives most of the affected people, particularly the landless who are displaced from their livelihood sources. It is an ethical and moral imperative that the people who lose access to their livelihood should be fairly compensated and rehabilitated by the project proponents.
The promise of employment generation has only limited potential, particularly for the unskilled local people. In a project where livelihood of almost 60% of the 4 lac resident population will be lost, a comprehensive rehabilitation plan should be in place before their land and livelihood are taken away.
Worldwide experience suggests a number of options towards fair compensation and rehabilitation of the projected affected people. The World Commission on Dams, and many others, recommend sharing of part of the benefits generated by dam operation with affected communities, in addition to mitigation and compensation measures for environmental and social impacts of dams. Some examples of good practices are also available within the country, where the government has gone above and beyond the provision of the inadequate LAA (Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge and Padma Bridge) by offering generous compensation packages for all affected people. Although those resettlement and rehabilitation plans only partially achieved the goal of reconstructing and restoration of the pre-project living standards, a solution can be found to ensure fair compensation and livelihood restoration of affected people.
If the growing frustration of the resident population of the islands is not addressed quickly, it may go out of control, repeating the fate of failed mega projects of the past. To avoid such catastrophic situation and also to ensure justice to the affected people the government should adopt a policy that:
Ensures transparent and inclusive process for determining minimum land required for acquisition;
Provides just and fair compensation to the affected families for their land loss;
Makes adequate provisions for resettlement of all categories of land dependent affected persons and rehabilitation of their livelihood,
Ensures that the affected persons become partners in development through benefit sharing, leading to an improvement in their post acquisition social and economic condition.
The writer is an environmental and social impact assessment expert. E-mail: ecomac99@gmail.com