Cuttack, Oct. 24: Implementation of Orissa Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, 2006, has come under judicial scrutiny with Orissa High Court intervening for completion of resettlement process in the case of persons displaced for the Kalinga Nagar Industrial Estate in Jajpur district.

The court intervened after displaced persons of the Kalinga Nagar project filed a petition alleging that authorities had not implemented the policy and had given the go-by to resettlement work ever since their displacement five years ago.

The Orissa Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, 2006, provides that “no displacement shall be made before the completion of resettlement work as approved by the Rehabilitation and Periphery Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC)”.

The policy entrusts the district collector with issuing certificate of completion of resettlement work while making the district administration and the project authorities jointly responsible for ensuring that the benefits of resettlement and rehabilitation reach the target beneficiaries in a time-bound manner.

Krushna Haibru and 44 other displaced persons filed the petition. All of them were rehabilitated at Trijanga, Sansailo and Gobarghati Tata D.P. colonies. Their petition was taken up for hearing last Thursday.

The high court had since directed the Jajpur collector and the project director of resettlement and rehabilitation “to complete the process (resettlement work) strictly in accordance with the policy (Orissa Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, 2006)”.

While issuing the order, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra expected the authorities to “act on the grievances of the petitioners within a period of three weeks”.

The petitioners had alleged that the “district administration and the project director is not making a permanent solution for availability of drinking water. Neither a water tank has been constructed in their resettlement colonies, nor has any water connection been given to the displaced persons”. They have also alleged that they had been facing health problems because of this.

According to the petition, more than 4,000 children of displaced families were living in the colonies. But no school had been constructed for them. Appropriate medical facilities, streetlights, a playground in the colonies had remained a far cry, while boundary walls had not been built around the camps of the displaced.

The Orissa Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, 2006, had also not been complied with, as no job card, direct or indirect employment and financial aid were provided to the displaced persons, including the disabled and the widows. The Record of Rights of land was also yet to be handed over to them, the petitioners alleged.