Development Intervention and Quality of Life: Experience from a Large Irrigation Project

This paper is an attempt to highlight the impact of large dam construction on the displaced people. In particular, we discuss about the Rengali Dam construction in Orissa and its impact on the displaced people of a resettled village. This paper aims to study the change in the standard of living and the inequality among the displaced people. Different types of methodology such as Coefficient of Variation, Ginni's Coefficient and Scaling Technique have been used in this study to test the objective. Finally, the study finds that dams tend to improve the quality of life of the poor, marginal and especially the landless people.