From: budaraju@cae.wisc.edu (Srinivas Budaraju)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: The Morse Commission Report
Date: 26 Aug 92 04:33:44 GMT
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering

The World Bank (WB), bowing to international pressure, took the unprecedented
step of appointing an independent commission to review the Sardar Sarovar
Project (SSP). The committee consisted of four men: Bradford Morse, former 
administrator of the United Nations' Development Programme and former 
undersecretary general of the UN; Thomas Berger, a Canadian lawyer known for 
his work on aboriginal and human rights; Donald Gamule, an environmental 
engineer with experience in water development issues; and Hugh Brody, an 
anthropologist and specialist in resettlement and rehabilitation issues.

The Commission, known as the Morse Commission, submitted its 363-page
report to the WB on June 23, 1992. The report analyzes the SSP
on the basis of officially stated policies on the one hand and the actual 
performance on the other. Its method emphasizes internal consistency,
or compliance with norms and standards derived from the government's 
own stated policies and covenants or specific commitments made to the
WB as part of the credit agreements. The report concluded that
the Rehabilitation & Resettlement (R&R) plan is seriously flawed and that 
the environmental impact of the project is quite adverse and recommended the 
WB to step back from the SSP till thorough-going corrective measures are taken.

Rehabilitation & Resettlement 

The Central government of India, the State governments of Gujarat, 
Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh (MP), and the WB are duty-bound to
implement a proper R&R plan because:

o	India ratified the 1957 covenant (number 107) of the ILO, which
	commits the government not to remove indigenous and tribal people
	from their habitual territories, except by providing them with
	lands of equal quality.

o	The Narmada Waters Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) ruled in 1979 that
	every displaced family be compensated with an agricultural
	land of equal size if they lose more than 25 percent of its
	holding. A minimum of 2 hectares must be provided for each 
	such family and any son above 18 is treated as a separate unit.

o	The WB's 1980 policy requires that the displacement must
	be minimal and that the displaced must regain at least their
	previous standard of living. It also requires that the compensation
	must go beyond "fair market values".

o	The WB's policy of 1982 on tribals states that it will not assist
	projects that knowingly encroach on traditional territories, unless
	adequate safeguards are provided. It also emphasizes tribal 
	participation in all decisions affecting them.

o	The credit agreement of 1985 with the WB extends the
	definition of oustees to include all those affected by the
	project not just by submergence. It also requires that
	every oustee (even landless) be given at least 2 hectares of
	irrigable land in any of the three affected states of his
	choice.

o	The WB's operational directive of June 1990 emphasizes 
	minimization of displacement by measures such as reducing
	the dam height. It also calls for special treatment for tribals
	and grievance procedures.

o	The WB's operations directive on tribals of September 1991
	encodes full respect to their dignity, human rights and
	cultural uniqueness and seeks to ensure that indigenous peoples
	do not suffer adverse effects.
	
To this day, the Maharashtra and MP governments refuse to recognize all
major sons of the tribals as families and to accept that tribals may not
have legal title to the land they cultivated for generations. The Gujarat
government does not recognize those affected by the canal and the people
living downstream of the dam as 'Project Affected People' (PAP), which qualifies
them for compensation. The MP government refuses to this day to draw up
even an elementary R&R plan. The Maharashtra government has a highly
controversial plan of resettlement in Taloda, and is asking the oustees
to move to Gujarat.

The WB has been no less guilty. It failed to carry out an adequate 
assessment of the human impact of the SSP. It didnot consult the 
PAP. It failed to consider the 1983 credit agreement and the 
associated policy on tribals. The bank repeatedly failed to consider 
the effects on the people downstream of the dam. It also ignored a
1983 report by Professor Thayer Scudder, which said that India's past
record in reservoir-related relocation violated bank standards. The
WB always placed the "approval of the project over compliance with the
bank policy". The WB has wilfully accepted vague assurances and promises
as adequate and as recently as this year made attempts "to soften...
criticism" and refrain from threatening "suspension of the loan".

Environmental Impact

The Morse report contains a scathing indictment of the lack of adequate
environmental and health safeguards and confirms the worst suspicions
of Indian environmentalists. Unbelievable as it might seem, to this
day, there has been no comprehensive environmental impact assessment.
The project failed in 1983 to receive clearance from the ministry of
environment and forests (MEF) because even the most elementary information
was not provided. The WB chose to ignore this fact while finalizing 
the credit agreement in 1985. It demanded a detailed workplan by 
the end of 1985, but to this day, there is no such plan in place.
When the MEF demanded a plan in 1985-86, the government said it would
be ready in two to three years, but went ahead with the construction
since the WB had already sanctioned the money.

In 1987, T.N. Seshan, then environmental secretary, granted conditional
clearance since any delays will add to the project cost. Three of the
four specified conditions are still to be fulfilled. In 1988, the planning
commission cleared the project subject to seven conditions. These have
not been fulfilled to date, but the SSP juggernaut rolled on. The WB
memorandum of November 19, 1990 notes that all these acts violate
the legal agreement with the bank.

Technological Assessment

The Morse report finds discrepencies of the order of 30 % in the 
hydrological data and estimates the likely water flow rates. It
concludes that the project "will not perform as planned with or without
the upstream Narmada Sagar projects". A technical analysis estimates that
a 28 % error in annual run-off of water would reduce the economic returns
to zero. And, since the Narmada Sagar is not built concurrently with
the SSP, there will be a 25 % decrease in power and 30 % fall in irrigated
area under the project.

The Morse report also concludes that 

o	the compensatory afforestation being undertaken by Gujarat 
	"would lead to a steady decline in the quality of the forests"

o	the backwater effect of sedimentation in the upper reaches of the 
	reservoir has not been considered by the planners

o	greater siltation, salinity, decreased water quality, greater
	pollution would result downstream

o	"an explosion of malaria" would take place

o	the Narmada Basic Development Project [which is meant to tackle
	all these problems] "adopts a piecemeal approach, falling far
	short of the work that the bank's missions have said is needed"

o	"there developed an eagerness on the part of the bank and India
	to get on with the job. Both, it seems, were prepared to ease, or
	even disregard, bank policy and India's regulations and
	procedures".
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Notes:  1.The WB is supposed to assess the Morse report and give its final
	  decision on September 10. Most probably, WB will go through with
	  the funding.
	2.The material is compiled from various sources, the main source
	  being "A Damning Indictment" by Praful Bidwai, Times of India,
          June 28, 1992, P 11.
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-Srinivas				budaraju@cae.wisc.edu

"My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts!" - Ronald Reagan
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian