Gujarat govt authority letter "denying" Narmada water for irrigation to smart city area: Farmers protest move

DSIR farmers protest against "refusal" to provide Narmada waters

By A Representative

Gujarat farmers of the Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR), a proposed Greenfield smart city towards the south of Ahmedabad, have strongly protested against the DSIR Authority, which has asked the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) to withdraw Narmada waters for agriculture to DSIR’s 28,203 hectares (ha) area.
After taking out a rally in the DSIR area under the banner of Bhal Bachao Samiti and Gujarat Khedut Samaj, the farmers’ representatives of 22 villages, which are to be affected, represented before the DSIR Authority to “withdraw” the letter it has written to SSNNL for decommanding the Narmada command area or face more protests across the region.
The DSIR Authority is a Gujarat government body, responsible for developing infrastructure for the proposed world-class smart city, which is declared to be meant for elite sections of society to live and do business. It is not known whether the SSNNL, which is responsible for the Narmada project, has accepted the proposal to decommand or rejected it.
In a statement, leaders of the protesting farmers – Bhagirathsinh Chudasma, Pradyumnasinh Chudasma, Jagabhai Sodhi, Ramdevsinh Chudasma, all belonging to the Bhal Bachao Andolan, and Sagar Rabari of the Gujarat Khedut Samaj – say that SSNNL should not go ahead with “decommanding” the 28,203 ha area.
“The SSNNL should immediately begin constructing Narmada canal distributaries, minor and sub-minor channels, as envisaged originally, on the entire 28,203 ha area, so that farmers are able to get Narmada waters. The work should begin within a fortnight’s time, lest our protests would begin”, the statement said.

Qualifying the “decision” to decommand the DSIR area as Gujarat government conspiracy to please the industrialists, the statement said, “Plans are being worked out to provide water to the industries, which would be set up in DSIR. Despite its assurances not to decommand the DSIR area, it has been dilly-dallying in the matter”, the statement said, adding, “The farmers are angry. They will not tolerate this betrayal any longer.”

Threatening to begin indefinite relay fast if the work for constructing Narmada canal network does not start, the statement said, “Already, farmers of other areas of Gujarat have declared support to DSIR farmers. They will join us.”
The Gujarat government has already handed over the 28,203 ha area of the DSIR for beginning the construction of urban infrastructure in the region. Under the town planning law, the farmers have been issued notices, that their 50 per cent of agricultural land would be taken away for developing urban facilities for the proposed smart city.
Notably, the Gujarat government wants to go ahead the smart city in the Dholera region despite the fact that the area is known to be flood prone, and would require massive reclamation at huge costs, something about which Dholera SIR’s feasibility report speaks about in some detail.

A detailed flood study is learnt to have been done out for the region, though it is not known whether it is being implemented.

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Gujarat Bitcoin scam worth Rs 5,000 crore "linked" with BJP leaders: Need for Supreme Court monitored probe

By Shaktisinh Gohil* BJP hit a jackpot in the form of demonetisation, which it used as an alibi to convert black money into white in Gujarat. Even as party scrambles for answers of how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP president Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just five days, and how Rs 3118.51 crore was deposited in 11 district cooperative banks linked with Gujarat BJP leaders, a new mega Bitcoin scam, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore has been unraveled.

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit.

Counterview

Search This Blog