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Apr 15, 2007

Double trouble for Birhor tribals in Jharkhand

Birhor primitive tribals at Paharsingh village in Angara block of Ranchi had their best after a long time, when the solar-voltaic system converted their water-deficit area into a water-surplus one, a first of its kind in Jharkhand.

They had their worst of time, when wild elephants staked their claim to water and criminals decamped with the solar plates of the system.

The village of 39 families, which is still to enjoy the luxury of power supply, had their moments last month, when the Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (JREDA) installed a plant at a cost of Rs 6.5 lakh to quench their thirst by harnessing solar energy. However, the joy of having 20,000 litres of groundwater daily fleeted away, as elephants came to the site of the plant atop a hillock.

Birhors who thought to have struck gold with the discovery of water hit the rough patch, when armed criminals decamped with five solar plates out of 40 of the plant. "It is definitely tough to prevent the jumbos, but tougher to deal criminals who made off with five solar plates worth Rs 40,000," said JREDA Director S E H Kazmi.

Kazmi is worried, for he had squeezed out required finance out of available fund in the absence of its scheme in JREDA's regular budget to install the plant.

"We never took a hydrologist with us to locate the point that could indicate the availability of water. On the contrary, a local diviner did the job with the help of two bamboo sticks. He really proved right after we drilled about 300 feet below to set the plant with the machinery of the Central Electronics Limited, a Government of India undertaking near Noida for water to gush out," said Kazmi.

JREDA has now set out on erecting a wall round the plant to prevent the elephants from trespassing into the site. "Besides, we are creating a 'jal kund' below the plant to store 5,000 litres to 10,000 litres of water for animals," said Kazmi.

JREDA might have thought out a solution to the jumbo problem, but it is still baffled to take any 'protective' measure against criminals. "Investigation into the theft case is on. But this is not a permanent solution, as police cannot always be available for an individual case. Villagers and their Gram Sabha must protect the plant as their own property," Kazmi said.

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3000 detonators, 400 gelatines seized in Dumka

Dumka, April 14: Jharkhand police today seized 3000 detonators, 400 gelatine sticks and 48 kg of wire, which could have been meant for Naxalites, from a bus here.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team stopped the bus on its way from Deoghat to Rampurhaat in neighbouring West Bengal's Birbhum district and seized the explosives from five passengers, Deputy Superintendent of Police Charu Lakra told a press conference here.

Five persons -- three from Birbhum and two from Murshidabad district of West Bengal -- were arrested after finding the explosives kept in two bags, he said.

The police were investigating whether there was any Naxal-link with the seizure since Naxal-posters were recently found at Kathikund, Sikaripara, Ramgarh and Gopi-Kandar in Dumka district, he said.

The five arrested persons were identified as Sapan Ravi Das, Mohammad Bagridduin, Mohammad Jala, Hassan Sheikh and Mohamad Sheikh, Lakra added.

http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=365782&sid=REG

PFC faces music from power secy for delaying Tilaiya project

MUMBAI: State-run Power Finance Corporation's move to postpone the date for the submission of request for qualification (RFQ) for the 4,000-mw Tilaiya ultra mega power project in Jharkhand has drawn the ire of the power ministry. In fact, power secretary Anil Rajdan has expressed displeasure over the postponement without any reason cited by PFC.

As reported by FE, PFC had postponed the submission date to April 10 from March 20. Ten bidders who filed RFQ for the Tilaiya project on April 10 include Tata Power Company (TPC), Jindal Steel & Power, Sterlite, Essar, Vishal Exports, Reliance Energy Ltd, Torrent, NTPC, AES and Bian Vijaya SDN Berhard ( Malaysia). These bidders have filed their RFQs despite the ongoing controversy over the Sasan project for the alleged misrepresentation by the successful bidder Lanco Infratech-Globeleq Singapore.

Power ministry sources told FE, "The secretary has taken a serious note of the PFC's decision to defer the RFQ submission date for the Tilaiya project. He has clearly noted that the changing of the deadline, without substantiating reasons, is untenable since this affects other basic parameters of the project. The secretary has asked PFC which is the nodal agency for the implementation of UMPP to explain its stand." PFC sources also confirmed that the matter has been discussed with the power secretary.

Rajdan's observation is crucial as PFC had planned to short-list successful bidder and issue letter of intent by July 16 and subsequently sign agreement by September 17. However, sources claim that with the revised date for RFQ submission this time table may go haywire.

Moreover, Rajdan is also reportedly disappointed by PFC's decision to postpone date for request for proposal (RFP) for the Krishnapatna project to May 25 from April 11. Earlier, PFC was to accept RFP on March 9 which was postponed to April 11 without citing any reason.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=160948

Chancellor's office initiative to improve teaching-learning culture in Bihar

The chancellor's office in Bihar has taken a novel initiative to bring about qualitative change in teaching in colleges and universities throughout the state.

It has constituted four different forums, which will suggest ways means to improve teaching-learning culture to make it more interesting and healthy. The move is aimed at checking falling classroom attendance.

The forums, authorised by the Raj Bhawan, will conduct workshops, seminars and refresher courses for teachers, organise educational visits, share knowledge on smooth conduct of practicals and motivate teachers. There will be four forums for four different streams – Science, Social Science, Humanities and Commerce.

The forums will consist of subject experts. Reputed retired teachers from Patna University and Magadh University Colleges based in Patna will also be part of the forums. Every university will later have regional centers. Based on the outcome of the forums, more such groups may be formed in other parts of the State.

Chancellor RS Gavai, while talking to HT, said that he had asked the government to provide sufficient funds for proper infrastructure development in colleges. "For the first time, the entire UGC teams came to Patna. The team of the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) also came to help the colleges. But for NAAC accreditation, the colleges must prepare themselves," he added.

The move to constitute forums is a sequel to the inspection of over 120 colleges by Krishna Kumar, OSD to the chancellor, in the last six months. "In most of the colleges, the teaching standards left a lot to be desired. Practical classes, so important in science subjects, were the worst hit and attendance of both students and teachers was very low," said Krishna Kumar.

Maintaining that all the students could not get enrolled to colleges of Patna, where the situation was relatively better, he said the best option was to make quality education available to all of them.

"The colleges should create such atmosphere in classrooms that draws students. At present, the students shy away from colleges. They are not content with the conventional method. They want something more and different," he said, adding the chancellor was keen on improving the scenario in higher education.

The chancellor's office has also constituted two separate working groups to work out the modalities for Eklavya (inter-university sports meet) and Tarang (inter-university cultural festival). Both the events would be annual features on different themes, viz AIDS awareness, female education etc.

To promote participation, Kumar said, there would be an incentive of up to 10 marks for students taking part in NCC, NSS, sports and cultural activities. This is after a very long time that efforts have been initiated to revive sports and culture in colleges and universities. The chancellor has announced that he would himself inaugurate the two events, which would rotate among the nine universities every year.

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Bihar mangoes US-bound

Ghulab Khas, Digha Malda or Zardalu, the succulent varieties of mangoes from Bihar, may fly overseas this season.

In view of a bumper crop, some exporters are considering sending these juicy fruits to the US market. Horticulture Department officials said at least 14 lakh tonnes of mangoes are expected to be produced over nearly 2 lakh hectares of land in Bihar this season.

"The export deal is yet to be finalised. Last year a private exporter from West Champaran had approached us for exporting mango varieties to the US. But it could not materialise due to some technical problems. The State has already been exporting Shahi and Chinese litchis to the Middle East and the US," Ajay Kumar Mishra, nodal officer, National Horticulture Mission (NHM) told HT.

The production of mangoes this time is expected to touch 14 lakh tonnes. Last year it was over 12 lakh tonnes, he said.
Varieties like Alphonso, a variety of South India, Dashahari (Uttar Pradesh), Amrapali or Prabhashankar are also available here.

"North Indians settled outside, especially Biharis, yearn for the local varieties. The exporters are targeting this segment," Shankar Jha, director, horticulture department said.

The mango crop this time is expected to be quite good. The production may further improve in the years to come as nearly 1,000 hectares of land have been added for mango plantation this year under the Chief Minister Gardening Mission. Mango, litchi and guava saplings have been planted in 19 districts of the State under the project, he said.

Mishra said the demand for local varieties have increased, but at the same time has also caused technical problems for the exporters. "They have short shelf life because of their sweetness. It can be improved with the vapour heat treatment (VHT). The processing will also remove fruit flies, turning them less perishable," he said. He also suggested setting up the VHT plant in the state for better packaging and more export of fruits.

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Government angry over slow development in Maoist-affected states

New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) Bihar and Jharkhand are likely to earn the wrath of the government for being slow in implementing various development schemes in their Maoist-infested districts.

A crucial inter-ministerial group (IMG) meeting of the union home ministry is meeting in Patna Monday to examine the pace of socio-economic development in insurgency-hit regions of both the states.

While Bihar is likely to be ticked off by the central government for faltering in speedy construction of roads and being slow in implementing job guarantee scheme in its affected districts, Jharkhand is likely to be told to expedite construction of roads in the vulnerable areas.

The meet, which will be chaired by home ministry's Additional Secretary (Naxal Management) Vinay Kumar, comes in the aftermath of a meeting of the ministry's Task Force in Hyderabad on the Maoist movement.

The agenda of Hyderabad meeting held Friday included joint strategies to tackle the Maoists, modernising intelligence gathering, and improving inter-state coordination to target Maoist leaders and cadres.

On the eve of the IMG meet, the ministry officials expressed concerns at the slow pace of construction of roads under Prime Minister's Rural Road Scheme and sluggish implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in the two states.

In 2006, the centre had earmarked 200 districts for implementation of the first phase of rural job guarantee scheme in such a way that all 150 Maoist-infested districts were covered.

Similarly, various states had been told to expedite road construction projects in the insurgency-hit districts to help security forces take up frequent patrolling there, official sources pointed out.

But Bihar and Jharkhand have performed miserably on both the counts, said sources.

For the IMG meeting in Patna, the home ministry officials appeared to have done some homework about the ground situation regarding rural road construction and implementation of the rural job scheme.

Citing an example of tardy pace of rural road construction in Bihar, the sources said, over 50 villages, including Alawalpur, Jamalpur and Jamunapur - having a population of over 1.5 million and located barely 15 km from Patna - have no roads at all.

These villages are situated near the Maoist-infested pockets of Masaudhi and Taregna near Jehanabad and could be a sitting duck for Maoist attacks owing to the fact that most of the villagers in this region are employed either in state police or various paramilitary forces and the army.

Additionally, these villages are inhibited by upper caste people and make them vulnerable to Maoist attacks.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/news/article_1291744.php/Government_angry
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SEZ APPEAL: The view from the states

Janardan Mhatre, 72, guards his three-acre land in the coastal village of Pen in Raigarh district the same way he would guard his grandson. Mhatre, who received a state government notice with 2,090 fellow villagers to sell their land to make for Reliance Industries' mammoth Mahamumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ), is ready to die defending it.

"We are ready to make a Nandigram right here in Maharashtra," Mhatre said after receiving a notice from the Maharashtra government making it mandatory for farmers to hand over land and accept the compensation offered by India's largest private company.

Nandigram, a village in southern West Bengal, was the location of some brutal police action last month following farmer protests over land acquisition by the state government for a large SEZ and has since become synonymous with farmer protests over land acquisition.

Resistance by farmers like Mhatre has meant that Reliance has been unable to acquire even four per cent of the land for its 10,000-hectare Mahamumbai SEZ.

Back in the pyramid-shaped headquarters of Reliance SEZs in Belapur in Navi Mumbai, nervous Reliance officials are tight-lipped. "Please read our compensation offer... it is the best for them," says one of them. The offer include Rs 5 lakh for barren land, Rs 10 lakh for land under cultivation or giving 12.5 per cent of developed land back to the farmer. A monthly payment of Rs 5,000 and a job for one person per family is also on the table.

Reliance's best, however, is not enough for the farmers who are teaching their children to work in white-collared jobs in the cities. "All these offers are bogus. They will make our children to work as security guards. As for giving developed land back to the villagers, the government's record is bad," says Thakur.

From the prosperous west coast to the poor east, such land-acquisition problems appear to be almost endemic to SEZs. The central and state governments and industrialists have embraced the concept with unqualified enthusiasm as future engines of economic dynamism. But the aam admi, whose land will be required for these model enclaves of industrial efficiency, seems less than enamoured.

Ever since the SEZ Act acquired Parliamentary approval on February 10, 2006, land acquisition and compensation acquired such mammoth dimensions that the government froze all approvals for a month a half starting mid-January. As Mhatre's experience shows, things have not changed significantly after the government cleared proposals and changed land acquisition norms on April 5. Given what looks like an intractable problem, is the SEZ concept destined to be a non-starter in India like its predecessor, the export-processing zone? Surprisingly, as reports from Business Standard correspondents suggest, the answer is by no means negative.

Trouble-free in Tamil Nadu

In contrast to other states, there have been no major issues over SEZ development here. The state has five operational (three manufacturing and two IT) SEZs. Eleven have obtained final approvals, while 22 have received in-principle approvals.

The early birds to scramble on to Tamil Nadu's SEZ bandwagon – Nokia for handset production, Flextronics for electronics manufacturing services, and Mahindra World City — are moving full steam ahead. Others who put in their applications for facilities in the second half of 2006 were bogged down by the embargo on fresh SEZ approvals, which the central government lifted on April 5.

So what has Tamil Nadu done differently? Senior government officials say most of the big projects have come up on land acquired by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd (SIPCOT), the nodal agency for infrastructure development schemes. This land is leased to investors or companies on the periphery of Chennai and smaller cities like Coimbatore, Trichy, Madurai and Tirunelveli. These are mostly dry-lands acquired by the government about a decade ago.

Where government land was not involved, the government resolutely stayed out of land acquisition deals. Farmers haven't done too badly out of recent acquisitions in pockets like Sriperumbudur, where Nokia has its plant. The per-acre cost of land here is Rs 90 lakh to Rs 1 crore (comparable to prices in the Mumbai's suburbs.

Tamil Nadu has also been successful in its SEZ policy because, in stark contrast to king-sized units elsewhere, SEZs here are spread on 200 or 250-acre plots (approximately 100 hectares). The total land area for a single SEZ in Tamil Nadu does not exceed 500 acres.

That said, the government has also announced four multi-product SEZs in a few districts with land requirements ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 acres (800 to 900 hectares) per multi-product SEZ.

Overall, the SEZ message appears to have percolated well here. There is a wide appreciation of the benefits of SEZs in terms of development of rural and semi-urban areas and their contribution to employment generation and the ripple effect on the economy of the state.

For instance, last year, Hong Kong-headquartered Growth-Link Overseas Company, a leading supplier to Nike, had announced plans to invest Rs 300 crore in a shoe manufacturing facility at Cheyyar, 90 km from Chennai. The SEZ, located in an industrially backward area, is expected to create job opportunities for 5,000 people, especially for women, in the first 2-3 years. This project has been on the backburner after the Centre's January freeze.

Smooth sailing in Gujarat

Unlike the controversy in Nandigram, Gujarat is busy developing its 33 approved SEZs with virtually no opposition from farmers (barring some minor protests against Reliance's SEZ and a small protest in Por near Vadodara).

For instance, work on the 2,600-odd hectare Mundra SEZ, which was notified last year, has progressed at a rapid pace — roads and water, power, telecom, gas, drainage and sewage connections are already nearing completion.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi has chosen to make SEZs the cornerstone of his government's economic development plan. So much so that the state enacted an SEZ Act in April 2004, one year before the Centre came up with its SEZ policy.

An evolved business culture has also made it easier to sell the SEZ concept here. Said S N Sharma, chairman and managing director, Diamond and Gem Developing Corporation, "In Gujarat, non-agricultural land is available in plenty and the local population is supportive of economic activities since it is a business community."

Like Tamil Nadu, the state government does not intervene between the SEZ developers and the farmers. Said Arvind Agrawal, Industry Commissioner, Government of Gujarat, "There is no opposition by farmers as there is no intervention by the state. Farmers are free to sell their land if they get a good deal and can refuse to sell if they don't."

Under the Gujarat SEZ Act an SEZ developer can deal directly with farmers and pay compensation under the Land Acquisition Act. The other way is to buy land belonging to Gujarat Industrial Development Board (GIDC) or wastelands belonging to the government.

Agrawal said farmers who sold their lands to the Reliance SEZ near Jamnagar became millionaires overnight and are now buying larger plots 10 to 15 km from the SEZ site.

The opposition to SEZs has mostly come from political and NGO sources who have voiced concerns about environmental degradation and labour rights (Gujarat promises labour 40 per cent cheaper than other states) following such mass industrialisation.

Landlocked in Karnataka

Karnataka probably best exemplifies the criticism that SEZs can foster land-grabs and real estate plays.

The state has 27 approved, 17 in-principle approved and 10 notified SEZs that will cover around 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares). Of these SEZs, five are operational. Information technology forms the bulk of the SEZs, followed by biotechnology, textiles, automotive and food processing.

Land is acquired by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) and then handed over to the SEZ developer. But there are numerous cases, especially for information technology SEZs, where private developers have acquired land and subsequently applied for SEZ status. Many analysts have suggested that domestic IT companies will simply relocate their operations to SEZs to avail of tax breaks once their tax-exempt status expires in 2009.

Though there have been no major protests over land acquisition in the state, senior officials in the Karnataka Industries and Commerce Department say land acquisition, compensation and rehabilitation remain major issues.

The principal concern is over the pricing of land acquisition and the compensation for displaced people. Added Shivaram Malakala, Executive Director of Habitat Ventures, a private real estate developer, "The policies are not completely clear in terms of the conversion of land use processes.

Developers who have acquired land on their own and then applied for SEZ status have often faced delays in notifying their land because of this ambiguity.

The lack of a practical policy for compensation and rehabilitation has also opened the door for politically powerful groups, not necessarily with corporate interests, to build land banks using SEZs as a proxy.

Meanwhile, the state is working on alternative modes of employment as a suitable rehabilitation measure. However, it is yet to define an adequate alternative source of livelihood, keeping in mind that if employment in SEZs is to be considered, the nature of employment would be skilled.

Chhattisgarh's small scale

As one of the most backward states in India, Chhatisgarh sees SEZs as a source of economic transformation. But, having suffered popular protests over land acquisition for non-SEZ industrial projects for the Tatas and the Ruias, the state has limited its SEZ ambitions.

Chhattisgarh has two SEZ proposals — one in IT (20 hectares) and another in gems and jewellery (30 hectares). The first is pending central government clearance and the latter has in-principle clearance. Additional chief secretary (industries) P Joy Oommen said work on both would start within two months of receiving all clearances.

Oomen maintained that land acquisition problems here are minimal because the SEZs will come up as part of the expansion project for the new capital city. However, acquisition for the new capital project is already showing signs of problems with farmers and NGOs raising doubts about compensation and benefits.

The state government has a rehabilitation and compensation package that minister of state for industries Rajesh Munat claimed is "the best and most attractive ". Farmers receive up to Rs 5 lakh per acre, Munat said, adding that the amount is fixed as per the cost of land in the area and its utility.

Former minister and senior Congress legislator Satyanarayan Sharma has demanded Rs 25 lakh as compensation for farmers. Many villages identified for the capital project come under Sharma's Assembly constituency, Mandir Hasaud.

Munat, however, claimed that land prices had gone up because the land mafia had cornered land and pushed up prices. "It is the mafia that is worried about compensation, not the farmers," he said.

Workers and dispossessed farmers are less than enthusiastic about the concept, however. A group of workers at a steel plant in Mandir Hasaud said the SEZs will employer fewer workers and require higher skills that they may not possess.

Orissa on its 'metal'

Orissa has received 17 SEZ proposals of which the Union commerce ministry has given formal approval for five and in-principle approval to eight, including Korean major Posco's showcase 12 million tonne steel project at Paradip. The total land requirement for these 13 SEZs is 12, 325.821acres (a little under 5,000 hectares).

Most of these SEZs are in steel or alumunium with IT a close third. Of the five SEZs to receive formal approval, four are to be set up by the state-owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO). The only other SEZ to receive formal approval is the Jindal Stainless Ltd's project at Kalinga Nagar. None of these SEZs is operational.

Not surprisingly, industry ranks land acquisition as the biggest hurdle in developing these SEZs. To add to the problem, the Orissa government has made it conditional for all standalone SEZs like Posco, Jindal, Vedanta, Hindalco, Saraf Agencies and so on to develop a minimum additional area of 250 acres (100 hectares) as a downstream hub near their SEZ to provide infrastructure and offer local entrepreneurs preferential allotment of sheds.

"When we are facing problems in acquiring land for our original SEZ area, getting an additional 250 acres to set up the downstream hub will complicate our problems," said a top executive of a company with SEZ commitments in the state.

Part of the land acquisition problem is political in origin. For instance, of the 3,956 acres (1,582 hectares) required for Posco's SEZ in Paradip, 3556 acres are government land. But hundreds of families have encroached on this land over the years and now eke out a living illegally cultivating betel vines.

Similarly, in Kalinga Nagar, people who had sold their land to the government in the mid-1970s for a steel hub and received compensation are now demanding higher compensation for the same land. In January this year, their protests turned violent following the construction of a boundary wall for Tata Steel's 6 million tonne plant here and 13 tribals were killed.

After the Kalinga Nagara incident, the state government raised compensation rates and promised jobs to at least one member per displaced family. Significantly, the state government also offered industry the option of directly negotiating with people for their land.

In Orissa, no one rejects the SEZ concept but the political opposition and NGOs continue to highlight the compensation issue. There are also concerns about agricultural growth in this primarily agrarian state. Said J B Patnaik, former Chief Minister, "SEZs should not be set up at the cost of agriculture. They should be permitted only in those areas where government land is available or where people are willing to give up their land."

Though the Orissa government is following the Centre's SEZ Act, it intends to frame its own rules soon. The proposed state policy may not allow exemption of state taxes like electricity duty, entry tax, VAT and stamp duty although the SEZs coming up in the state can avail of exemption from Central taxes.

Overall, the mood in the states is one of determination to forge ahead despite the problems. And as Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have demonstrated, the key lies in implementation as much as policy.

As Sunil Rallan, managing director of J Matadee Eco Parks, pointed out, "The Indian government's SEZ policy is superior to China's in terms of legislation but has failed in the implementation process."

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No sign of green

AT the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, India along with other member-countries of the United Nations, committed itself to a path of sustainable development. In 2002, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. this commitment was reiterated through a unanimous Political Declaration. At the turn of the millennium, the countries also framed the impressive Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one of which is to "ensure environmental sustainability". While several countries have gradually moved towards meeting this commitment, India seems to have moved further away from its commitment. This becomes apparent when one examines the 80-page Approach Paper to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, released recently by the Planning Commission of India.

On the face of it, the government does seem to be aware of the need to integrate environmental concerns into developmental strategies. The Approach Paper makes the bold statement: "The 11th Plan must integrate development planning and environmental concerns". But the rest of the document seems to go in the opposite direction.

The first chapter, on "Objectives and challenge", contains no reference to environment or sustainability whatsoever. A single paragraph "Protecting the environment" is all that it gets under the section, "Some major challenges". Somewhat later in the document, in the chapter on "Sectoral Policies for the Eleventh Plan", a couple of pages are devoted to "Environmental sustainability", dealing mainly with technical and managerial aspects such as increasing green cover, conserving wildlife, reducing pollution and tackling solid waste. There is no focus on how to steer the economy towards greater ecological sustainability although at the Johannesburg summit India had committed itself to a "10-year framework of programmes to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production" and the MDGs require India to "integrate principles of sustainable development into policies and programmes". The concrete targets set in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation or the specific elements of the MDGs do not figure in the Approach Paper. There are no indicators to measure whether India is moving towards achieving the targets domestically or internationally.

On the contrary, time and again the Approach Paper makes it clear that environmental regulations should not be a hurdle in reaching a growth rate of 8.5 per cent. Under the section "Industrial growth", the paper recommends single-window clearance for industrial applications to reduce "delays" in various procedures, including environmental clearances. The reduction in "delays" is a euphemism for diluting environmental standards and regulations, as witnessed in the amendment to the Environmental Impact Assessment notification in 2006. Under "Environmental sustainability", the paper warns of the danger of environment protection leading to a "new licence permit raj system", and recommends a review of environmental clearance procedures without which "large increases in investment required for accelerated growth will not fructify".

MINING LEASE

Under "Mining", it recommends "elimination of constraints in the way of investments in mining activities" and goes on to cite favourably a report which recommends that mining companies that are given "reconnaissance permit" should also have the right to get "prospecting licence" and thereafter "mining lease". Given that many State governments are already eager to lease out forest tracts and Adivasi habitats to mining companies, these recommendations are alarming. Measures such as the removal of the Urban Land Ceiling Act are suggested, with no reference to the unsustainable boom in construction activities and heavy road traffic that cities are witnessing and no recommendations have been made on urban environmental regulations. It is ironical that while the Approach Paper recommends full provision of public services such as health the government is facilitating the wholesale takeover of land and water for industrial purposes, depriving communities of basic health resources such as nutritious crops and forest and aquatic produce.

Strangely, the section on agriculture does not acknowledge the critical role of environmental degradation in lowering the average productivity of land, although it mentions other reasons such as imbalanced fertilizer use. Nor does it mention, in its recommendations, the importance of organic or sustainable farming. A series of measures to accelerate production and enhance farmers' security are recommended, including greater orientation towards markets and trade (especially exports), without referring to the enormous impact this would have on land and water. Contract farming is favoured, ignoring the highly iniquitous relationship between corporate bodies and farmers and the environmental degradation caused by monocropping promoted by companies as part of such deals.

Also ignored is the safer alternative of building direct links between farmers and citizen consumers, and of diverting local agricultural produce into the Public Distribution System (rather than procuring from Punjab and Haryana for the whole country). Achieving self-sufficiency and food security through organic, low input farming does not find a mention in the Plan document.

The crisis that pastoral communities face is acknowledged, and strong words are used to trace this to government policy, which has resulted in the blocking of migratory routes by development and conservation projects and encroachment on pastures by activities such as biodiesel plantations. Butno recommendation is made on how to deal with this situation.

Creditably, the Planning Commission recognises the displacement of communities for development projects as a serious problem. However, the solution it provides does not touch the heart of the matter, which is the flawed decision-making process regarding what development projects are necessary in the first place. Such a process would incorporate environmental and social impacts, and would centrally involve affected populations in decision-making, possibly avoiding many cases of displacements in the first place. It is, for instance, not good enough to say that in mining areas the "rights of those whose lands are acquired must be suitably protected"; what is needed is for such people to be involved in taking an informed decision on whether the mining project is necessary in the first place.

The Approach Paper cites a National Common Minimum Programme statement that India can "absorb" three times the current Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) average of $5.4 billion a year. It is not clear whether the term "absorb" includes the carrying capacity of the environment; and what will such a massive jump in the activities of multinational corporations in industrial, mining, infrastructure and other sectors entail? The Paper makes no mention of this.

INTEGRATED STRATEGIES

As the Planning Commission moves towards the finalisation of the 11th Plan, it must find ways to operationalise the Approach Paper's commitment to "integrate development planning and environmental concerns". If it wants to show that it truly means that "there should be no compromise on protecting the environment" and that "in the longer run environmental sustainability and human well-being are not necessarily in conflict", it needs to integrate the following into the Plan:

A range of indicators to assess progress towards sustainability, including per capita availability of environmental services such as clean air and water, sanitation, forests and other natural ecosystems, reduction in the rates of biodiversity loss, clean and sustainable energy production and consumption and health standards linked to a clean environment. Countries such as the United Kingdom have developed a large number of such indicators, which we could assess for suitability in Indian conditions;

A commitment to move increasingly towards non-conventional clean energy sources (wind, solar, biomass, and so on). China, which we never tire to show as a model of economic growth, has announced a target of meeting 15 per cent of its energy needs through such sources by 2020; Sweden has announced that within 15 years it will be an oil-free economy. These are the sort of goals we should be setting for ourselves;

Strategies to make every economic sector more environmentally sensitive through environment impact assessments, not only of individual projects but of entire sectors and departments. For instance, when the Power Ministry or Water Resources Ministry drafts its plans and policies, it must go through an assessment of their possible environmental and social impacts. An "ecological footprint" analysis needs to be built in, which shows how much damage is caused by an economic sector, or a city, or the country as a whole;

Green budgeting and accounting in which the true value of services provided by intact ecosystems and biodiversity, including water and food security, are factored in, and in which the true social and economic cost of destroying the environment is centrally integrated. China is considering introducing a "green gross domestic product" regime, having realised that its economic miracle will not last long if environmental degradation continues at the current rate;

Sufficient investment to regenerate the degraded land and water resources, a mission which could provide employment to millions of people;

Redefining the concept of "backwardness" so that districts currently classified under this are considered ecologically and culturally sensitive and development plans are devised accordingly; and

Shifting subsidies away from unsustainable products such as agro-chemicals, towards organic, biologically diverse agriculture and animal husbandry (what the Approach Paper calls "multi-product" farms).

None of these concepts is new. They are being employed in a number of countries. If India wants to project itself as a global superpower, it must first show it is capable of living much more responsibly on the earth and providing a much healthier and cleaner environment.

However, there is one silver lining. The working groups set up to develop the component on Environment and Forests contained a number of civil society actors. Their final report contains a number of progressive ideas. One of these is to set up a Commission on Sustainable Development, an autonomous statutory body with powers to monitor and guide the government's development direction.

Others include an Environment Clearance Authority that can function independently of both government and project proponents, and compulsory public hearings and written local community consent for all development projects.

It is, however, not clear how much of this will go into the final Plan. If we do not incorporate such measures into our planning and development process, we will continue on a perilous collision course with the very ecological conditions that give us life.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20070420000708700.htm

Chhattisgarh in power-sharing pact with J&K

Jammu & Kashmir will provide Chhattisgarh power this summer while the latter will return it in the same proportion with a bonus of 5 per cent in the winter.

The pact between both the states was finalised recently through the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). While J&K will start supplying power in next couple of days, Chhattisgarh will return it in November and onwards.

"Under the pact, J&K will provide 100 Mw of power to the state while we will return 105 Mw. The formalities have been completed and the state will start getting power from April 16," said the state electricity board secretary Manoj Dey.

The state will draw power from Kashmir for the entire summer. Dey conceded that there was a huge gap of 500 Mw between demand and supply in the state at this point of time.

The installed capacity of the state-run power board is 1410.85 Mw. With the state getting power from other sources, it reaches to 1,950 Mw.

The demand, however, has already reached 2,500 Mw and is likely to increase as summer advances. The board has increased the time of load shedding as a temporary measure to maintain the balance between demand and supply.

While the industries are facing power cut for about 6 hours daily between 6 pm and 12 mid-night, the district headquarters barring Raipur, Bilaspur and Korba will remain without power for one hour daily in the morning hours.

The villages in Chhattisgarh are already facing the heat with more than 4 hours power cut in morning and evening hours. The load shedding will continue till May 30, sources in the board said.

"The 100 Mw from Kashmir will help in reducing the gap as the board is also exploring other options to meet the crises," Dey said. The state officials are in touch with the other states to purchase power. But the deal could not be finalised except the one with Jammu and Kashmir.

Chhattisgarh, under the pact, will assist Jammu and Kashmir in meeting some proportion of the demand when it will reach peak during the winter. With the valley-state having maximum hydel power stations, the state plunges into acute power crises when water freezes with mercury level dipping minus.

Besides, power generation comes down, power consumption goes up in Kashmir during winter when people using different electronic devices to keep themselves warm.

http://www.business-standard.com/economy/storypage.php?leftnm=3&subLeft=1&chklogi
n=N&autono=281337&tab=r

Tilting the balance

THE Supreme Court judgment against reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in admissions to Central institutions of higher learning is the latest in a series of verdicts by India's higher judiciary that seek to undo existing or proposed measures to promote equality and justice. It sets back the cause of building an inclusive, caring-and-sharing society that genuinely values diversity.

The verdict's impact will be particularly severe because of its timing - just before the admission process begins for the next academic year, for which Central educational institutions, many of them reluctant to implement OBC quotas, were allocated over Rs.2,000 crore so they could expand their infrastructure and admissions volume.

Equally damaging are its likely social and political effects, which have been widely seen as tilting the balance in the social justice debate against affirmative action. The strident celebratory welcome accorded to the judgment by upper caste-dominated groups such as the Youth for Equality and the Resident Doctors' Associations in Delhi - based in teaching hospitals that practise caste segregation and active anti-Dalit discrimination - bears testimony to that. As does the critical, even angry, response of a range of political parties that support reservation for OBCs. Clearly, the verdict is an exercise in social engineering - of the retrograde, reverse, kind.

Yet, for all its heavy implications, the judgment is based on extremely slender reasoning, contained in less than 30 brief paragraphs. (More than half the space in these is occupied by long quotes from the Supreme Court's earlier verdicts. Almost two-thirds of the judgment summarises the arguments of the petitioners and the government.)

The judgment makes no contribution to the existing jurisprudence on affirmative action or reservation by clarifying or sharpening the criteria that justify the treatment of a particular group differently from others. Nor does it explain why it is wrong to increase the number of seats available in Central institutions by 54 per cent to limit the "disadvantage" the upper castes would face thanks to OBC quotas. It merely makes numerous assertions, including the strong statement that such an increase would mean treating "unequals" as "equals".

The judgment bases itself on two lines of reasoning. First, it says that there is some indeterminacy and confusion over the OBCs' share in India's population; the number estimated by the Mandal Commission may be too high; and the government is wrong to reserve 27 per cent of admissions unless it first determines the size of the OBC population on the basis of the "objective criteria" of backwardness.

Secondly, however, it raises fundamental questions about quotas and reservations as a measure of affirmative action. If the true rationale of the judgments it cites and its own reasoning are considered, the second argument is far more important than the first one, centred on numbers. The first merely provides a cover for the second.

But let us consider the first line of reasoning. It holds that the 27 per cent quota is derived from the Mandal Commission report, which wrongly estimated the size of the OBC population at 52 per cent of the total, on the basis of the obviously outdated 1931 Census. It also counterposes it to other estimates, in particular, some derived from the recent National Sample Survey (NSS) and the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

This involves a major distortion and a methodological problem. It is a parody to hold that the Mandal Commission relied primarily on the 1931 Census. True, it began with it as a starting point/first hypothesis because it remains the last Census to enumerate castes. But it did not stop there.

The Commission consulted a wide range of experts from different social science disciplines before reaching its conclusion. In particular, it appointed an expert committee headed by the outstanding sociologist, M.N. Srinivas, with 14 other social scientists as its members, to prepare schedules and questionnaires to be sent out to all the States and 30 Central departments. It ordered systematic surveys of all residents in randomly selected samples (two villages and one urban block) in each and every district of the country.

The experts' committee derived 11 indicators of social, educational and economic backwardness, and identified a total of 3,743 communities as "backward" and worthy of support through affirmative action.

Contrary to a widespread impression, caste was just one of many criteria. Others involved dependence on manual labour, low educational status (percentage of matriculates at least 25 per cent below the State average), high dropout rates and young age of marriage. Social indicators were given three points each; educational indicators two points; and economic indicators one point each. Quotas were only one of the Commission's dozen recommendations, which included land reform, and programmes for educational and economic uplift.

One can of course question these estimates: no expert or method is infallible. But it is simply malicious to argue that the 3,743 groups were chosen arbitrarily or as part of "vote bank" politics, or to devise a "catch-all grab for power rather than a social justice programme". It is one thing to demand further refinement in the determination of backwardness and estimates of the OBC population. It is quite another to say that the 52 per cent figure is "mythical".

It is even more wrong to counterpose the NSS and NFHS figures to the Mandal estimate. These surveys were never meant to enumerate castes and their distribution. The NSS' principal function is to estimate income, employment and consumption patterns. It does that with some rigour. But the identification of castes is left to the person being interviewed. She/he can ascribe whatever caste she/he likes. Such self-ascription is notoriously unreliable. People will claim a "backward"/higher caste status if that helps them. Besides, the NSS lumps Muslims together with upper-caste Hindus to arrive at a 32 per cent estimate for OBCs. The NHFS estimate is even lower. Questionable as they are, these numbers are well above the 27 per cent OBC quota. So they do not occasion drastic change - like staying quotas altogether.

However, implicit in the Supreme Court judgment, and heavily influencing it, is the second, more radical, argument, advanced in two judgments of the United States Supreme Court: Grutter vs Bollinger and Regents of University of California vs Allan Bakke. The first is a highly controversial verdict, delivered by one of the most conservative Supreme Courts in American history, headed by William Rehnquist, a Ronald Reagan appointee, who did a great deal to restrict the rights of underprivileged people. It is truly lamentable that our courts are following precedents set not by progressive, pro-public interest American jurists such as Earl Warren, but by ultra-conservatives judges.

The thrust of the Grutter judgment is that affirmative action, in particular in the admission process in universities, must be "narrowly tailored" to promote diversity, but not in such ways as would discriminate against those excluded from affirmative action because they do not belong to ethnic or racial minorities.

Thus, a desirable race-conscious admissions programme cannot "insulate each category of applicants with certain desired qualifications from competition with all other applicants" by creating a separate quota. It can at best assign special importance or "a plus" to race or ethnicity in an applicant's file within the general category.

The latest verdict quotes this approvingly - while apparently disregarding its import. This, quite simply, runs counter to the constitutional reservation for the Scheduled Castes ( S.C.) and Scheduled Tribes (S.T.). These are the very categories, which, the U.S. court says, should not be "insulated" but made to compete with others. Such "competition" between unequal candidates reeks of total disregard for the overwhelming reality of caste discrimination and the heavy disadvantage that Dalits and Adivasis suffer - indeed, many OBCs do.

Such a position is simply incompatible with the Constitution, which right since 1950 has provided for reservation for S.C. and S.T. It should be impermissible for Supreme Court judges to oppose this important part of the Constitution. It simply will not do to pay lip-service to affirmative action, while ruling against its most commonly accepted and constitutionally validated form - reservation for S.C./S.T. Such reservation is an essential part of society's acknowledgement of the historic wrong it has done to Dalits for centuries and of the need to create social opportunity for them.

However, the judgment appears to take an insensitive and disparaging view of social disadvantage when it says: "... nowhere else in the world do castes, classes or communities queue up for the sake of gaining backward status. Nowhere else in the world is there competition to assert backwardness and then to claim we are more backward than you. This truth was recognised as (sic) unhappy and disturbing situation... "

People do not celebrate or enjoy backwardness. They suffer it and face discrimination, insult and humiliation because of it. Mocking at their aspirations to overcome backwardness betrays casteist prejudice.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20070420004212200.htm

news@jharkhand.org.in Jharkhand News Network www.jharkhand.org.in

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