Fwd: [initiative-india] URGENT Press Release on Narmada Canals and Golibar, Mumbai evictions

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: NAPM India <napmindia@napm-india.org>
Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 7:05 PM
Subject: [initiative-india] URGENT Press Release on Narmada Canals and Golibar, Mumbai evictions
To: Medha Patkar <nba.medha@gmail.com>, vijayan@delhifoum.net, napm-india <napm-india@googlegroups.com>, initiativeindia Groups <initiative-india@googlegroups.com>, action-2007@googlegroups.com, Madhuresh Kumar <madhuresh@napm-india.org>, vijaya chauhan <vijaya.chauhan@gmail.com>, madhuri variyath <madhurivariyath@yahoo.co.in>, napmconveners@googlegroups.com


Dear All,

Please find attached the press releases from the press conference held today at IWPC Delhi addressed by Medha Patkar on the above mentioned issues. Kindly do cover it prominently.

Regards,

Madhuresh

for NAPM 

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16

th

February, 2011

Shivalik – Unitech Scam exposed: CBI Inquiry is a must

Brutal Demolition of 100 years old houses must be stopped

The statement by the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra that Mumbai is up for sale by 

a nexus of  vested interests is unfortunately true! This is being exposed through one

scam after another, not beginning with, but highlighted more than ever, through 

'Adarsh' Society scandal. A much bigger, deeper and murkier scam however is now 

unearthed  and  challenged by  various co-operative  housing societies in decades-old

poor communities all over Greater Mumbai Metropolitan region. In the name of 'slum 

– rehabilitation', lands are being acquired, diverted and 'reused' in favour of the elites, 

the builders, profiteers and politicians. 

The case of  'Shivalik  Ventures' fictitiously  termed  as  'Developers' with 50% 

investment coming from Unitech and for this company under scanner, through Neera 

Radia  and her favouring financiers, is an obvious scam. The company has  planned

and proposed a  'township project' which has been fully supported by the state of 

Maharashtra during the Chief Ministership of Vilasrao Deshmkh and Minister of Urban 

Development with Ramanand Tiwari as the Principal Secretary. 

Shivalik Ventures is given 'Letter of Indent', permission under the Slum Rehabilitation 

Scheme, as per Clause 33 (10) of Development Control Regulations on 125 acres of 

land in the prime areas of Mumbai – Khar-Santa Cruz. This is permitted in the name 

of  'Township' and using the  '3-K' clause  of the Maharashtra Slum Act, 1971.  The 

Project approved in 4 phases  (4 LoIs) is  fraudulent and  excessive  powers 

granted to the state government are used, that too in absolute violation of the 

Rules, regulations and the Constitution. 

The area, known as  Golibar,  i.e.  Rifle Range is  inhabited by  at least 26,000 

families with various communities; pakka houses and co-operative housing societies. 

The oldest one, Golibar  Housing Co-operative registered in 1984 and  notified, has 

120 chawals, existing on 38 acres of land with a confirmed property rights. However, 

their land is being  usurped by Shivalik  without even being purchased,  through cooperatives which came up much later. Most of the 46 societies on 125 acres of land 

which Shivalik has  received consent for  redevelopment, are on  state lands, private 

lands as well as lands belonging to the Ministry of Defence. The area of 12.2 acres 

reserved for Rifle Range in Survey No. 13, CTS No. 387 as well as Survey No. 12 is partly encroached with six – seven storied buildings built for  rehabilitation on Survey 

No. 12, without consent of  the Airports Authority, Defence Ministry. while whole of the 

land is being planned for. Various  documents received by NAPM, under  RTI Act 

clearly bring out that the Defence Land is being usurped and the matter raised by the 

Air Force authorities time and again since the last few years is only sub-judice, but not 

yet settled by the state revenue authorities, till date. 

Thousands of families have thus been  cheated and the same rehabilitation  is 

presumed and  reported to the  Mumbai  High Court, the latter having ordered

demolition of 70-100 year old houses of working class people who migrated to 

Mumbai, mainly from various districts of Maharashtra, on the same basis. 

It is also to be noted that Shivalik has cheated the slum societies who have engaged 

various  Developers such as Madhu  Construction Company, Bohri Developers, 

Tamboli Developers etc. and entered into agreements with them, by seeking a vague 

permission from the state  government and directives  to the Slum Rehabilitation 

Authority, which is misused for sanctioning joint ventures between Shivalik and other 

smaller developers,  the latter being paid 1.5 to 2 crore rupees amount to purchase 

clearances  – LoIs  granted to them.  The new LoI to Shivalik was once again 

without  consent of  the  concerned societies, with fake  General Body Meting 

Resolutions and fake signatures. A criminal case by one society and Ganesh Kripa 

is under investigation by the High Court's orders, while the complaints of the others to 

SRA and police stations are not heeded nor responded to. 

Shivalik Ventures, with 50% funds  having come from Unitech and 25% from Rohan 

Developers Pune, questioned on another scandal by some citizens over the last few 

months  needs to be fully  inquired into through CBI  urgently.  In spite of  the local 

societies and NAPM having petitioned and requested the state government, massive 

demolition with huge police force is on, brutally and illegally. 

One High Court order to co-operate is used by the police and Housing Ministry 

officials, but only on the issue of eviction, without fulfilling the directives on temporary

and permanent rehabilitation. It is obvious that the Project worth thousands of crores, 

with  'offendee companies' involved is being pushed and  supported with the corrupt 

politicians at the helm of affairs, at the cost of the people., their right to land and life 

with dignity, the Defence Ministry and its property, violating the rules and norms of the 

Railway Ministry, distance from rail tracks  and land boundary, as also  making a 

mockery of rule of law and democracy. 

Mumbai is on sale through such frauds, which are  exposed but will also be 

under  the sanner during the Jan Sansad, a large Peopl'es Parliament to be 

organized at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai on March 4

th

and 5

th

by the NAPM and various national people's movements. 

Medha Patkar  Prerna Gaikwad  Simpreet Singh  Vivek Pandit 

Contact Ph: 09423965153 / 09969363065 / 09423571784

Indian Women's Press Corps                   16

th

February, 2011 

Review Benefits, Costs, Impacts and Performance of Sardar Sarovar

Rehabilitate all Dam & Canal Oustees: Save irrigated areas from destruction by Canals 

As one of the largest and widely-debated large dams in India, Sardar Sarovar completes three decades, 

there is an urgent need for the Planning Commission to undertake an immediate and comprehensive 

review of the entire Project; especially its overall financial, environmental, social and cultural costs, 

promised vis-à-vis attained benefits and impacts of the Project on the agriculture, ecology and livelihoods. 

Benefits in Doldrums: Command Area land diverted to industries 

It is now public news in Gujarat that the State Government has decided to divert 12,000 hectares of land 

acquired for the SSP canal to the industries and SEZs. While on the one hand farmers are unwilling to part 

with their agricultural lands for the canals, on the other Gujarat is both wooing and threatening the farmers 

to give up their lands. The CAG Report of 2009 has concluded that only 20% of the canal network has been 

built, while a shocking 80% network remains to be constructed. It is, therefore, obvious that Gujarat is 

not able to use even 10% of the reservoir water, as per the Water Resources Ministry's own data.  For 

decades, Sardar Sarovar has been pampered and politicized, but the claimed benefits of irrigation, drinking 

water and power are  far from achieved, even after  an  investment of 45,000 crores till date.  Before the 

costs escalate upto 70,000, as estimated by the Planning Commission itself, its costs and benefits 

must be objectively reviewed.

Rehabilitation of 2 lakh oustees pending: Judicial Inquiry into massive corruption on

In striking contrast to the utterly false annual report of the Narmada Control Authority (2008-09), there are, 

to this day, 2,00,000 adivasis, farmers, fish workers, potters, landless who are awaiting land and livelihood 

based rehabilitation in the three states of Madhya Pradesh,  Maharashtra and Gujarat. A Judicial 

Commission of Inquiry under the chairmanship of Retd (Jst) S.S. Jha  is  investigating into  hundreds of 

crores of corruption in the  fake land registries scam and other areas of rehabilitation in M.P. is going 

on. Encashment of the rehabilitation entitlements by the M.P. Govt.  has only benefited the  officials, 

middlemen and scamsters, but has left the oustees without any land or livelihood. 

The M.P. Govt. has recently come up with  another  fraudulent circular in  September,  2010, forcing 

oustees who have been given one installment of the cash-based Special Rehabilitation Package (SRP) to 

accept the rocky, uncultivable or encroached lands, that too 150-200 kms away from their village of 

displacement. The notices warn that if the oustees refuse to accept the same, the 2

nd

instalment of the SRP 

would be forcibly deposited in the oustees' bank accounts and they would be considered as 'rehabilitated'. 

This Circular is in blatant violation of Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award and numerous judgments of 

the Supreme Court,  which entitle every eligible oustee to cultivable land and also is against the Apex 

Courts' order which mandates that no cash compensation can be disbursed without the scrutiny of Justice 

Jha Commission. This scheme has re-activated the same nexus of officials and agents who are once 

again on a looting spree in the villages.  NBA demands that the SRP, as a failed scheme must be 

immediately scrapped by the Narmada Control Authority, which has a legal mandate to monitor 

rehabilitation of all the oustees as per the NWDTA. ISP-OSP Canals: Thousands of hectares of irrigated lands  must be  saved: A major challenge is to 

save thousands of hectares of fully – irrigated farm lands on the bank of the river Narmada, which is being 

acquired and excavated day in and day out for the largely unplanned and unapproved canal network of the 

Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar canals. It is shocking that these canals are being constructed in the directly 

draining catchment area of the Sardar Sarovar and Maheshwar dams. Without prior command area plans 

and timely execution, severe impacts of water logging and salinizatiion are bound to occur,  which has 

already begun.  In reality, these villages need no irrigation since as per the Government's own DPR's,

22,000 – 29,000 ha of land in the command area was already irrigated in 1982-83 itself and the irrigated 

area today would not be less than 50,000 ha. As in the case of SSP, the river-bank farmers fear that once

they are displaced, the water would be diverted to the industries to come up in the Nimad region. 

Instead  of  complying with the Madhya Pradesh High Court's to review the canal network in the irrigated 

areas in order to protect agriculture, minimize displacement and save the state exchequer, the Government 

is continuing with  acquisition of the most ago-rich lands with numerous illegalities and is evicting people 

from their only source of livelihood, without  prior rehabilitation. It is notable that while the High Court 

directed an indefinite stay on the canal work in November 2009, the Supreme Court temporarily vacated 

the stay and subjected the same to approval of the command area development plans of MP Govt. by the 

Expert Committee  and the  Union Environment Ministry  within 10 weeks.  However, despite a categorical 

report by the Expert Committee, disapproving the CAD plans and recommending no canal work, the same

has been pushed ahead over the past 10 months. As rightly pointed out by Planning Commission member 

Dr. Mihir Shah, neglect of CAD would seriously defeat the already limited benefits of canal-based irrigation. 

The Government is also misinterpreting and making a mockery of the Court's orders on 

rehabilitation and has not provided cultivable land to a single oustee till date! Both in the case of the 

SSP and canal-oustees the MP Govt. is making illegal and invalid offers and in many cases, as per the 

state government's own affidavit before the Apex Court filed in 2000, there is no cultivable land, free of 

encroachments. This is causing serious violation of the rights of oustees already facing deprivation. 

MoEF must uphold Expert Committee's Report on SSP & Canals: The Expert Committee appointed by 

MoEF  in 2008  under the Chairmanship of  Dr. Devender Pandey  for assessment of the planning and 

implementation  of the  environmental safeguard measures of Sardar Sarovar, Indira Sagar Project and 

Omkareshwar canals & command area has submitted four interim reports to the Ministry and has made a 

categorical conclusion in each report that there are gross lapses in the planning and execution of various 

environmental measures, both in the case of the Dams and canals.

Report  Submitted on  Summary of Committee's Conclusion 

First  13

th

Feb, 2009  Rejected the NCA Report on Back water levels  of SSP, pointing out serious 

technical and legal flaws and also on the ground that it violated the NWDTA. 

Second  13

th

Feb, 2010  Concluded gross non-compliance on SSP's environmental conditions, 

especially command area development, compensatory afforestation, catchment 

area treatment, impacts on flora, fauna and  Recommended no further 

reservoir filling and construction on the canals until pari passu compliance 

of all conditions is ensured.

Third  5

th

April 2010  Rejected Draft and Interim  CAD Plans of Madhya Pradesh Government for 

ISP & OSP Canals as mere 'Expression of Intent' and not adequate in terms of 

MoEF's clearance  conditions.  Committee concluded the plans to be 

incomplete. Hence cannot be approved.

Fourth  25

th

July 2010 Recommenced withdrawal of the conditional permission given by the 

Supreme Court for excavation and construction of canal. Strongly 

disapproved the arguments of  Narmada Valley Development Authority as 

incorrect and self-contradictory, without any valid and documentary support.

In this over all context of serious non-performance of the SSP and the  grave  environmental and 

rehabilitation issues,  the  Prime Minister must subject  the  Project to  a comprehensive review by 

involving all the concerned Central Ministries, government and non-government agencies and the 

people's organization; NBA. MoEF must also take a truthful and just decision  to stop the ISP and 

OSP canal work until all conditions in the clearances are fulfilled. Review of the canal network in the 

irrigated areas would save thousands of hectares of land and thousands of livelihoods. 

Medha Patkar                   Mukesh Bhagoria                  Lalchand Patidar                     Narsing Bhilala 

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
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