India Burning

No public, just hearings for mega projects

They walked in a single file. Some were bare-chested, their shirts used to tie their hands behind their back; many nursing bruises from fibreglass batons wielded by policemen. All 36 men were picked up on January 7 and marched six km to a police station on the outskirts of the coal mining town of Korba in northern Chhattisgarh after a public hearing, held to assess the environmental impact of a thermal power plant, turned violent.

...

Large projects in predominantly tribal areas (called Scheduled Areas) must comply with a two-step process of public consultation: a public hearing to assess the environmental impact of the project and a crucial village-level consultation – called a Gram Sabha – where villagers and government representatives agree on the terms and conditions of land acquisition.

Yet, documents obtained by The Hindu reveal how officials in Chhattisgarh treat the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification of 2007and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) of 1996 as mere formalities and routinely overrule gram sabhas to acquire lands on behalf of industry, prompting a withdrawal of the ‘public' from public hearings. In the past, the Planning Commission and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh identified the non-implementation of PESA as a factor in increasing tribal disaffection and the rise of the CPI (Maoist).

In Korba, the villagers were protesting against the planned expansion of a 1,320 MW power plant set up by Lanco Amarkantak. “Earlier, we gave our land willingly on the condition that the company would provide us with jobs,” said Laharam Murao, a village leader from Imilibhata. Mr. Murao said the company had acquired 1.5 acres of his land in 2005, but he had neither received any compensation and nor had anyone in his family gained permanent employment at the plant. “This time we said ‘we will not give any land, no public hearing shall take place,'” Mr. Murao said.

...

District Collector R.P.S Tyagi arrived at about 3 p.m. and, according to the villagers and policemen interviewed, set up a table 50 metres from the crowd and announced that the public hearing had begun.

“We refused to approach the table,” said Shyam Kumar Chauhan, a villager, “but a few people allied with the administration gave their opinions.” Twenty minutes later, Mr. Tyagi said that the hearing was complete and tried to leave when the crowd grew agitated and sought to stop him.

“All the legal formalities of the public hearing were complete. If even one project affected person gives his opinion…the legal requirements are fulfilled,” said Mr. Tyagi in an interview, adding that 24 people had participated in the hearing.

Foresight In Land Acquisition For The Mittals

KIADB put out the notification for acquiring land fully four months before signing the MoU with the ArcelorMittal. Was everything fixed much before the GIM?

Land Grab In Tribal Areas

Plain and simple. And the tribals are supposed to grin and bear it? From Business Line:

..according to a knowledgeable scholar, Dr Walter Fernandes,between 1947 and 2004, nearly six crore persons were forcibly displaced due to acquisition of land for development purposes, and of them 40 per cent constituted Scheduled Tribes.

Out of a total population of generic tribals of eight crore, 2.4 crore people were involuntarily thrown out of their land, home and occupation. This figure constitutes 30 per cent of the total tribal population.

Official figures admit that only 28 per cent of the displaced tribal population has been rehabilitated. Assuming that even this low figure is not an exaggeration, what happened to the remaining 72 per cent of the displaced tribals numbering 1.44 crore?

When the Ministers and MPs in illegal occupation of vast official mansions in Delhi, owing crores of rupees to ‘‘We, the People'' in rent, electricity and water charges, and having their own extra homes elsewhere, are sought to be evicted, do not they raise Cain and cling to their illegal possessions, defying Parliament and the people? Do not the fat cats of the corporate domain let out a howl whenever the exemptions they have grown accustomed to are touched? You want the poor, the deprived and the downtrodden, subsisting without food or water, to feel ecstatic when you trample them under foot?

The law-and-order maestros are horrified at the violence and savagery from the side of Maoists and want to exterminate them at all costs and by all means. True, violence is abominable and deserves to be condemned.

But, then, people are forced to take to violence because only then the powerful governing class deigns to invite them for talks! People have come to know by experience that the government functionaries are stone deaf and the only way to jolt them is by exploding a bomb or setting fire to public property, for, only then, everyone from the Prime Minister down rushes out to listen to them.

Nandigram

This is pathetic. The Governor of the state asked:

“the news has filled me with a sense of cold horror”. “What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we have witnessed today?” he asked.

What purpose was served really?

The issue has been too politicised too. The lady is too reckless. And the government is too stubborn. Will this be the beginning of the end for the Left in WB?