Orissa first drafted a comprehensive rehabilitation policy back in 1994, but that was never enacted. Currently, the state draws up R&R policies on industry-specific basis.

Another UNDP/DFID aided draft was presented to the state revenue department on 8 July 2005. After sitting on the draft since last year, the state now wants the 5-member ministerial committee, headed by Industries and Law Minister Biswabhushan Harichandan, to review the draft and submit a report within a month.

The new policy will apparently have three components dealing separately with displacement due to mineral-based industries, irrigation projects or wildlife sanctuaries and linear projects. There will be provisions for compensation and jobs in mining/industrial projects and land for land in case of irrigation and road projects.

Industrial houses have already been grumbling about the provision in the draft for allotting 5 per cent equity for displaced and affected as preferential shares and setting apart 5 per cent of their net annual profit every year for local development schemes within the plant area. But the tribals are not setting much store by it.

The Kalinga Nagar protestors have submitted a seven-point charter of demands to the Governor asking for an immediate stop to all land acquisition and displacement in the name of development and industry.

Activists and land experts are recommending a moratorium on land acquisition until the state conducts a proper survey and settlement its lands. A key factor in this survey, they say, should be the recognition of shifting cultivation areas and communal ownership of land on which many tribal societies are based.