No green clearance to Dholera SIR?: Gujarat govt says it doesn't have intimation of environmental nod

Proposed Dholera airport for the smart city

Latest information provided by a top Gujarat government agency suggests that the Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR), being planned on around 920 sq km area south of Ahmedabad at one of the 100 modern smart cities the Narendra Modi government wants to develop all over the country, may not have received the crucial green nod for its development. In reply to a right to information (RTI) plea to provide a letter of the copy of environmental clearance to the top state-sponsored project, the DSIR Authority, a special purpose vehicle formed to trigger the project, has said it is “not available and hence cannot be provide”.
The reply by the top state agency comes several weeks after of a report which said that while the project has been “recommended for environmental clearance by the expert appraisal committee of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF)”, it has not received coastal regulatory zone (CRZ). The RTI application was filed by a powerful farmers’ organization which has cropped up to protest against a dozen-odd SIRs proposed across Gujarat, Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG), in alliance with Bhal Bachao Samiti, a local people’s organization of the Dholera region.
Based on the reply it received, JAAG has wondered why the Government of India has not cared for forwarding the intimation letter for environmental clearance to the state government agency. “Is this another instance of an assault on the decentralized system of governance and the federal nature of the polity? Is this good governance?”, it has JAAG asked in a statement, adding, the DSIR Authority has answered almost in the vein to other three questions which it had asked in the RTI letter.
The questions to which JAAG was told the authority did not have any intimation include were – whether environmental clearance was advertised in any newspaper, and if so, provide a copy of the same; action taken on the objections raised against the project at the environmental public hearing held in Dholera; and copy of letters written to panchayati raj institutions (village, taluka and district panchyats) intimating them of the clearance.

Proposed high-speed rail link for the Dholera smart city

To the question whether the process of getting requisite clearances from coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) and wildlife board had at all been undertaken, with a request to provide copies of letters, studies etc. if the process had begun, the DSIR Authority evasively replied, “The sought information is too voluminous to be provided, but may be perused in the DSIR Authority premises during office hours”.
The DSIR was notified in 2009 as a SIR under the Gujarat Special Investment Region Act. It was the first SIR which was proposed to be developed with the declared objective of providing establishment, operation, regulation and management of large-size investment regions and industrial areas in Gujarat. It was also meant to especially enable their development as global hubs of economic activity, supported by world class infrastructure, premium civic amenities, centers of excellence and proactive policy framework.
Agricultural activities in 22 villages are likely to be adversely affected because of the DSIR, which is part of the 1,483 km long Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) between Delhi and Mumbai. About 40 per cent of the DFC passes through Gujarat. A recent meeting of the expert appraisal committee (EAC) of the MoEF decided to recommend the proposed DSIR for environmental clearance. At the same time, the committee laid down 69 “strict conditions” to follow while implementing the project, a report said.

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Search This Blog