Anthropologists discussed new paradigms on Social Impact Assessment

        A two day national workshop on “Situating Social Impact Assessment in Development Milieu: A Holistic Approach” (March 8-9) concluded unsuccessfully on the second day in the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

The four sessions of the second day were chaired by renowned anthropologists namely Prof. P.C. Joshi, Prof. Siva Prasad, Prof. Vineetha Menon and Prof. P. Venkata Rao respectively.

        The eminent speakers emphasized the integrated role of social impact assessment and anthropology. The speakers delivered lectures on geospatial technology, assessment of social impact on extreme events, legal framework and ethical considerations. The topics were highly enlightening, eye- openers and informative. Broader domains covered were the legal framework of SIA, understanding, socio-cultural, ecological environment of SIA, ensuring successful outcomes of resettlement and rehabilitation and the mitigation measures.
Conducive and productive discussions were taken up after each presentation.  Light was thrown on allied aspects during the zero hour
sessions.

Professor Karamjiteet Singh, the Registrar of Panjab University, in his  valedictory address congratulated Prof. A.K. Sinha, Organizing Secretary and Dr Kewal Krishan, Chairperson of the Department for doing such outstanding work in Social Impact Assessment. As this workshop is directly concerned with the policy makers, Professor Singh emphasized to conduct such workshops periodically so that the recommendations and outcomes can be implemented at State and Center levels.

In all, the national workshop was an altruistic mode to exchange ideas, create innovations and ameliorate the existing systems including holistic perspective, covering Anthropological, Legal and Administrative domains of SIA.