Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The conflict between extractive industrial growth and the constitutional and statutory rights of its Scheduled Tribe (ST) population, which makes up approximately 22.8% of the state's population, is at the heart of one of the nation's most enduring development disputes in Odisha, a mineral-rich state on India's eastern seaboard (GRAAM, 2022). This article examines the structure of environmental governance in Odisha and its connection to displacement and tribal rights using three classic cases-the Niyamgiri bauxite mining dispute, the POSCO-JSW steel project in Jagatsinghpur, and the Kalinganagar industrial complex-as well as a state-level assessment of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) and the Odisha Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) Policy, 2006. Formal legal safeguards, such as free, prior, and informed consent through gram sabhas, environmental clearance procedures, and rehabilitation entitlements, have been applied unevenly and frequently reluctantly, creating a governance gap between statutory promise and administrative practice, according to the analysis, which is based on judicial records, government audit reports, and peer-reviewed literature. While the POSCO and Kalinganagar incidents show how procedural non-compliance and forcible land acquisition lead to lengthy dispute, violence, and developmental standstill, the Niyamgiri case shows the liberating potential of gram sabha consent when judicially enforced. In order to balance industrial development with tribal self-determination and ecological sustainability, the article suggests a number of institutional reforms, including strengthening Forest Rights Committees, decentralizing monitoring to gram sabhas, and harmonizing the Land Acquisition Act, FRA, and PESA. It contends that environmental governance in Odisha is still torn between a centralizing, investment-driven state apparatus and an increasingly assertive rights-based framework.
Author: Rajesh Kumar Khatua
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7196949481