Counterview

By Rajiv Shah The latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) study , “Corporate Investment: Growth in 2012-13 and Prospects for 2013-14”, prepared in the Corporate Studies Division of the Department of Statistics and Information Management, has found that Gujarat has been pushed to the fifth position in investment destination. Analysing on the basis of capital expenditure intentions of the companies in private and joint business sector, the study has found that four states have overtaken Gujarat – Odisha, which is No 1 investment destination, with 27 per cent of all investments, followed by Maharashtra (19.1 per cent), Punjab (10.5 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (5.6 per cent) and Gujarat (5.4 per cent).

AP1000 reactor By A Representative Top Gujarat-based environmental NGO Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti has claimed that the technology being used for the proposed nuclear power plant at Mithi Virdi, Westinghouse AP1000 “is an untested reactor technology”, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has already “raised several technical doubts about the reactors, which were given a nod to by non-technical committee members of the NRC.” In a statement, issued jointly with the Bhavnagar Jilla Gram Bachao Samiti and the Gujarat Anu-urja Mukti Andolan, the NGO said this is particularly dangerous as the “exact location of the Nuclear Power Plant (Westinghouse AP1000) is just a few km away from Alang Shipbreaking Yard”.

By Rajiv Shah  Despite huge claims by the Gujarat government about the positive impact of the 10-point programme on the migration process in the tribal areas of the state, recent expert observations as also research works on a district which is exclusively tribal, the Dangs, suggest that though the region may have received better infrastructure facilities, such as roads, the tribals’ livelihood issues remain unresolved like before. In one of the most recent observations, Janmejaya Mishra, an anthropologist by profession working with the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), Ahmedabad, has shown how Dangs’ tribal population faced an “endangered livelihood”, with large number of them continuing to migrate like before. Giving the instance of a tribal named Kailash of Timerthava village in Subir area of the Dangs district, Mishra write in his blog , this tribal has been migrating with his wife to Belanpur near Mandvi for last few years, and continues to do this even today. “He and ...

By A Representative Anti-Namada project sentiment appears to be fast spreading deep inside Madhya Pradesh. Latest reports suggest, over the last ten days, a civil disobedience movement is being carried out by thousands of oustees of the districts of Dewas, Khandwa, and Harda, affected by the Indira Sagar dam, which Narmada Bachao Andolan describes (NBA) as “the largest impoundment in the country”. An NBA statement said, “The state government tried to crush the movement by declaring section 144 on the waters of the Indira Sagar dam, but in all three districts, thousands of oustees have broken the section offering arrests, and spread Jal satyagraha.”

By Rajiv Shah A recent Gujarat government report has identified Bharuch in Central Gujarat as the most hazard-prone district where what are called Major Accident Hazards (MAHs) can take place compared to the rest of Gujarat. The report, titled “Gujarat State Chemical Disaster Management Plan”, which has just been released, says that in Gujarat a total of 1,730 hazard-prone units have been identified, out of which 313 are in Bharuch, followed by Ahmedabad (287), Vadodara (261), Surat (165), and Valsad (137).Of the total number of industrial units with chemical hazard, Bharuch has the highest number of MAH units (75), followed by Vadodara (65), Kutch (35), Valsad (30), Ahmedabad (29), and Surat (26).

By Rajiv Shah  The Gujarat government’s just-released high-level report, “Gujarat State Chemical Disaster Management Plan (CDMP)”, has said that while formation of new rules and regulations as also enactment of new laws is important to fight chemical disasters, a more serious and immediate concern is regarding existence of what it calls a “serious gap” in enforcing existing rules and regulations to fight them. The problem has arisen particularly because, says the report, “currently, no single agency or department is made responsible for coordinated response for chemical emergency. In practice, the collector is expected to fulfill the role of coordinating response.” Pointing out that “the international best practices are to have a single agency responsible for coordinating response of multiple response agencies during disasters, ensuring that individual response agencies are prepared to required level, and develop integrated response capability for the state”, it wants the Gujarat S...

By A Representative Meera Mathew, a senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India, has said that the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012, pssed in Parliament, has several major flaws. In her latest opinion on the subject, the senior lawyer particularly pointed towards Chapter IV of the bill, which shows that it entirely deals with the identification of manual scavengers in urban areas and their rehabilitation.

By Rajiv Shah  A top document, just released by the Gujarat government, has raised a major alarm. Sponsored by the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority (GSDMA), and prepared by Mumbai-based engineering consultants, Prestels, in collaboration with international risk management consultants, IEM, USA, the document says, “As one of the most developed and industrialized states in India, Gujarat is home to a high number of hazardous chemical industries”, adding, the data provided by the state government’s Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health suggests that nearly 2,000 industrial units out of about 25,000 working under the factories Act are hazard prone. Categorising these hazard-prone industrial units, the report says, as many as 380 are vulnerable to major accident hazard (MAH), while 1,019 are Type-A units where chemical quantities handled are below the threshold quantity for MAH units and 758 are Type-B units handle hazardous solvents and highly inflammable liquids. Apa...

By A Representative Unprecedented submergence in the densely populated villages of Nimad region of Madhya Pradesh in the last week of August has spurred a series of mass actions by the Sardar Sarovar project-affected families – most of them poor landless labourers, fish workers, potters, adivasis and other farmers, who are waiting to be fully rehabilitation with alternative land, house plots, amenities at resettlement sites, alternative livelihood etc. 

By A Representative In an important development, a top international advocacy group, Carbon Market Watch (CMW), has welcomed the decision of EDF Trading, a major buyer of carbon credits from carbon offsetting projects around the world, to distance itself from the “controversial” Adani Mundra coal power project. The EDF Trading is a leading player in international energy markets and operates across all commodity lines, especially coal, which is the main requirement for the Adanis’ Mundra power project.