OKD INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT

One of the major priorities of research in the Institute has been to understand the economy and the development processes of Northeast India. The Institute is expected to undertake research on problems and processes of social transformation and development of the region and to contribute to the formulation of strategies and programmes for speedier regional development. It also offers advisory and consultancy services to government and other agencies working in the region. A major mandate of the Institute is to try comprehend the issues intrinsically related to development processes of the region. The major studies in this area by the Institute till date have contributed not only towards an empirical understanding of the basic issues but also have given major theoretical inputs on the issue of underdevelopment. More than thirty major studies have been successfully completed by the Institute till now in this thrust area. The ongoing studies in this thrust area are:

Data Validation for Sectoral Interventions under the proposed World Bank aided ‘Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project' (APART)

Government of Assam (GoA), through the Government of India (GoI) has applied for a credit of US$200 million from the World Bank (W.B.) for implementation of the proposed Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART) which is currently under preparatory stage. The objective of the proposed Project is to “increase value-added and improve resilience in the production and processing of selected agriculture commodities, focusing on small farmers and agro-entrepreneurs in targeted districts”. The project activities will be spread over a period of seven years, involving eight line Departments of Government of Assam. As the project is all set to be rolled out in the state, as a part of the preparatory phase, identification of districts, blocks and sectors have been in progress. The identification is being carried out based on data supplied by relevant Government of Assam line departments. Based on the available data 10 core sectors aligned to the project aims have been identified for possible intervention and support spreading across 16 districts and 149 blocks in the state.Given the focused and result oriented nature of the proposed investment, it is desired that an on field and proper validation of the data based on which identification of sectors has been conducted should be carried out for going ahead with the proposed investment. The present study is intended to meet this objective and aimed at generating a set of alternative estimates to validate the government data based on which the sectoral interventions are planned. This project has been funded by Assam Rural Infrastructure and Agricultural Services Society (ARIASS).

Regional Cost Benefit Analysis of Ronganadi Hydro Electric Project (RHEP); Projected Estimation of CBA for Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Project (LSHEP)

The Northeastern region of India has been found to have the potentiality of producing 63,257 MW of hydropower by a survey conducted by Central Electricity Autothority in 2010. Such high projection has increased the importance of the region and is considered as a future power house of the country. Keeping in the line of this projection, 11 large hydropower projects, each with more than 25MW capacity is at present operating in the 6 states of the northeastern region with total installed capacity of 1,6686 MW. However, the proposed dams have come under severe criticism on the grounds of inequitable benefit distribution, downstream displacement, loss of cultural heritage, disruption of community networks, loss of unique biodiversity, sloppy Environmental Impact Assessment etc. So, it is important to understand the cost-benefit ratio of the existing and operating hydropower projects of the region to assess its viability for further expansion of hydropower potentialities. The study proposes to study an operative hydropower project in terms of its cost-benefit ratio under a definite ecosystem and estimate the cost-benefit ratio of another hydropower project under the same ecosystem. The rationale of the study is based upon the realization that no dam in the world could be an exact replica of another, even under the same or similar ecosystem. Various factors including geographic condition, technological advancement, diversity of implementing agency etc have influenced each hydropower project. Each hydropower project is unique and must not be an imitation another. Ronganadi Hydro Electric Project (RHEP) could be considered as the sample of operating hydropower project to understand the status cost benefit ratio and the inferences drawn from this estimation could be judicially and realistically used to develop a cost-benefit model for Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Project situated almost in the same ecosystem.