India: Why Social Impact Assessment is crucial to Land Bill
While the government’s efforts to extend compensation and rehabilitation benefits to the exempted projects are laudable, removing the Social Impact Assessment and consent processes threatens the effectiveness of these measures. How will compensation be calculated without factoring in the costs and impacts of private assets, including bore wells, temporary sheds, electrical fittings and housing materials and animal sheds? How can companies possibly hope to generate meaningful employment without assessing existing wage rates and poverty levels or understanding the specific livelihood activities that men and women carry out, across castes and communities?..The Bill cannot be seen in isolation from other policy changes that have weakened the rights of citizens to be consulted on decisions affecting their lands and livelihoods. These changes provide evidence of a troubling shift in the perception of the relationship between business and human rights, which assumes that compensation is the only currency that matters.