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Simson Ingti, a young law graduate who hails from Bokajan in Assam’s autonomous hill district of Karbi Anglong, is livid. He has been joined by 300 other protestors at Diphu, the district headquarters of Karbi Anglong, demanding the local administration scrap a renewable energy project aimed to cut down India’s reliance on fossil fuels. The increasing protest against the solar project however shows that the proposed project may not be as ‘green’ as what it is intended to be.
On March 26, the protestors belonging to various political formulations representing tribal bodies rallied against the Assam government’s plans to divert 18,000 bighas (2,396.5 ha) of tribal land to a solar power project supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Did the global financing arm not factor in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution that empowers tribal communities to make decisions on their resources?
“The project faced protests since 2023, right at the time when it was proposed. The Indian constitution guarantees autonomy to Sixth Schedule areas where tribal people are empowered to raise questions over resources like land. The Sixth Schedule clearly prohibits the allotment, occupation, use or setting apart of land for any other purposes likely to promote the interests of the inhabitants of any village or town. The proposed 1000 MW solar project for which the Assam government plans to acquire our rich, fertile and ecologically sensitive lands goes against these very constitutional protections for which they do not have our consent. Free and informed consent is not just applicable to tribal areas but to the entire world,” Ingti told Down To Earth (DTE). The protest rally was organised by All Party Hills’ Leader Conference (APHLC) along with CPI (Liberation HLC), National Peoples’ Party and host of tribal and indigenous groups from the region.
In July 2024, the ADB prepared a rehabilitation and resettlement plan which states that over 2,396.5 hectares or around 18,000 bighas will be used to generate 1000 MW of electricity which has been valued at $672.68 million or Rs 4,000 crores under the Assam government’s flagship scheme, Mukhya Mantri Sauro Shakti Prokolpo (Chief Minister’s Solar Power Project). ADB maintains that the project is consistent with India’s long term climate mitigation policy or nationally determined contributions and is also aligned with its first long-term Low Carbon Development Strategy that stipulates net zero by 2070.
The solar project will construct a grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) facility which will also house a Battery Energy Storage Station (BESS) to ensure grid stability and meet peak power demand. This storage system will be established through a joint venture between the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) Tripura Power Company, a government owned gas drilling company. This will include 2,201.5 hectares (16,511 bighas) of Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) land and 1,489 bighas (198.5 ha) of customarily owned land by local communities. Documents accessed from ADB shows that the solar power project will be set up using a private-public partnership model, majorly funded from a loan of $434.25 million from ADB or 64.56 per cent of the project funding. The Government of Assam will be securing 19.29 per cent of the cost of the solar project through private investment totalling around $129.77 million from investors who are yet to be announced. The Assam and Union Government’s contribution stands at 16.15 per cent or $108.66 million.
ADB’s resettlement plans show that 38 houses will be completely impacted displacing 1,277 families. The principal crop of the area is paddy. Til (sesame), maize and a variety of gourds with chillies are also grown. Local farmers mostly send their vegetables to Nagaland as well as markets in the neighbouring Golaghat district. Many of the families facing displacement are dependent on plantations that cover 800 bighas or 104 hectares of which lemongrass (Citronella), a plant used in perfumery and herbal insecticide manufacturing covers about 480 bighas or around 62 hectares, rubber grows over 35 hectares, and bamboo plantations cover 50 bighas or 6.5 hectares.
Countering ADB’s claims, the Karbi Anglong Solar Power Project Affected People’s Rights Committee (KASPAPPC), says 24 villages will be impacted affecting the lives of 25,000 village residents from the Karbi, Naga, Adivasi and other communities. In April 2023, the KAAC allotted the said parcel of non-cadastral land in favour of APDCL for a year. “If the said land is not utilised within a year, it will revert back to KAAC,” stated the possession certificate issued to APDCL on April 26, 2023. KASPAPPC has alleged that KAAC did not renew the possession agreement for the land for 2024-2025 as APDCL could not start the acquisition process. When DTE reached out to Lalit Narayan Kar, Assistant General Manager of Non-Renewable Energy division, APDCL, he refused comment. “We have all the necessary clearances. However, I will not be able to comment on the issue of the possession,” Kar told DTE. Similarly, KAAC officials remained mum about the present status of land when they were contacted for the status of the present land.
The locals protesting against the plant said that ADB, APDCL and several other officials visited the site. “These groups even misled some of the local village gaonburhas (heads), coaxing them to issue a NOC on a blank paper and attempted to create divisions within our community by showing that this project is on a wasteland. Our political leaders have been coopted by the ruling party, who are now going against the very laws that protect this land. We do not want a solar project in our land,” said General Secretary of APHLC, Vikram Hanse.
Anita Mech, a social activist who lives in Bokajan, the nearest town, said the project will immensely disturb social relations between communities. “This is a region where communities like Karbi, Naga, Kachari, Adivasi and several other indigenous and marginalised communities collectively cultivate food, ensuring food security of the people. However, this project is a threat to these social relations. Instead of ushering development, it will displace people,” Mech warned in a meeting recently held in Longkathar, one of the villages in the project area. During the meeting, the locals swore an oath, as one of the residents recounted the names of all the 23 villages which will impacted: Men Tisso village, Bonglong Terang Arong, Lokpo Kiling Arong, Sam Teron Arong, Langbirik Rongpi Arong, Sarpo Terang Arong, Miji Kro Arong, Sarsing Kramsa (Langtuk Kramsa) Arong, Hatoka, Bidysing Timung killing, Mohori Teron Arang, Kania Hanse Arong, Long Kathar Arong, Longhup Timung Arong, Kara Rongpi Arong, Keda Phen Rengma village, Rengma Phen Kara Arong, Sonjoy Rongphar (Longle Keer, Lalmati, Balijan) Arong, Samuel Lougun Adivasi village, Langroiso Adivasi Arong, Langbali Adivasi village, Nihang Terang Arong, Teke Ingti Arong and Hada Rengma village.
In a letter to Tuliram Ronghang, KAAC chief executive member on August 29, 2024, KASPAPPC said that many project affected indigenous landowners have been threatened to accept the project. “Many of our Scheduled Tribe (ST) people living in these villages are terrorised into agreeing to accept compensations meekly for the loss of their land for their land, not on their own free will. This terrorism is created by the fact that several persons who have never lived in these villages have allegedly and stealthily made pattas (titles) of several plots of land here in their own names just for getting compensation money illegally, and these outsiders are fiercely pursuing in the offices for receiving payment of compensation. We want the value of land; we do not want the price of land. We do not want alternative land at a different place. We have been living here for more than 600 years since our great grandfather’s time,” the letter stated.
ADB’s own records shows that close to 10,102 trees will be cut for the solar power project. Law graduate Ingti cultivates around eight bighas close to the proposed site. He identified human-elephant conflict as one of main issues faced by farmers, apart from the threat of the proposed solar power plant. Ingti, like many other farmers in the region, has been setting aside two bighas of their land for the elephants. “For a moment just imagine, a large parcel of the land locked up by solar panels, which is used by humans and animals alike. Now completely made inaccessible by construction to meet energy needs of some big cities,” Ingti painted a gloomy scenario standing at the protest site.
The proposed site is an extension of the Kalapahar-Doigrung elephant corridor which connects Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, with forests like Nambor Wildlife Sanctuary, less than 30 kilometres away from the proposed project site. The same elephant corridor extends all the way to Nagaland, connecting Intaki National Park, according to the Gajah report published by the UnionMinistry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Kalapahar-Doigrung elephant corridor is a part of the Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong landscape which has at least 2,000 elephants according to an assessment prepared by non-profit Wildlife Trust of India.
ADB’s own assessment of risks and impacts of the project is marred with contradictions. ADB did identify “an unnotified elephant corridor” known as the Nahorlangso Elephant Corridor, around 3 kilometres from the project boundary. The assessment then goes on to talk about ‘stray elephant’ sightings in the project site.
Strangely, the Silonijan Forest Beat under which the project area falls has been recording close to 20-23 human elephant encounters every year, with casualty of at least three persons including a forest department worker and two minors adjacent to the project in the last five years, ADB’s own ground assessment counts Indian Cow, Indian Goat, Rhesus monkeys and jungle cat as recorded species.
Pranab Doley, a political activist and the convenor of KASPAPPC, submitted several memoranda showing the ground realities to ADB authorities. “However, we are shocked that a financial arm like ADB has been diverting funds to the Centre for large scale land grabs without knowing the situation on the ground. In this case, the project violates the Sixth Schedule. There is no free, informed and prior consent for the project. We have written to ADB in the past many months but their redressal mechanism has been completely inadequate,” Doley told DTE.
Over time, the movement against the Karbi Anglong Solar Park has found support from national groups as well. “The dubious manner in which mandatory free prior informed consent of the indigenous people affected by this project has been acquired is totally unacceptable. This grabbing of land that sustains indigenous Karbi and Naga communities by terming it ‘wasteland’ and aggressive expansion plans of solar projects with funding from international financing institutions, cannot be green-washed as clean and green while they disregard and destroy far more sustainable ways of living. We urge the Assam government to listen to its people resident in the 23 proposed project-affected villages and call upon the ADB to immediately halt disbursement for the project, reconsider its lending for such large solar projects and focus their support for community owned renewables,” Vidya Dinkar, one of the founders of South Asia Just Transition Alliance, an advocacy group on South Asian perspective on energy issues.
With the Union government vigorously pursuing renewable energy targets to have infrastructure generating more than 500 GW, the opposition in tribal regions like Karbi Anglong where fertile lands are scarce due to the hilly terrain, point towards a disturbing trend. Researchers refer to this as ‘green grabbing’. “Large-scale land acquisitions of smallholders’ farmland and the privatisation of public lands are accelerating to facilitate the vast spatial requirements for renewable energy installations like India’s solar parks, which represent vital infrastructures in the country’s ostensible renewable energy transition. As nations transition to cleaner forms of energy to mitigate the climate crisis, coerced land acquisitions are localised iterations of a global pattern of green grabbing, the capture of land and resources justified through environmental or sustainability rationales. This is particularly the case with solar photovoltaic systems in the global South,” states Ryan Stock, a researcher at North Michigan University in his paper published by the Energy and Social Sciences journal in 2022. Stock studied the earlier allegations of a similar land grab by the Assam government for a solar power project in Nagaon district in which 93 acres of lands cultivated by marginalised Karbi and Adivasi peasants were diverted to a power company.