Fwd: [initiative-india] NAPM demands halt to Narmada Canals: Seeks protection of agriculture, livelihoods & ecology

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From: Initiative India <initiativeindia@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 6:47 PM
Subject: [initiative-india] NAPM demands halt to Narmada Canals: Seeks protection of agriculture, livelihoods & ecology
To:

NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTS
A Wing First Floor, Haji Habib Building, Naigaon Cross Road
Dadar (E), Mumbai-400 014 Ph. No-2415 0529 E-mail: napmindia@gmail.com
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13^th February, 2011

MoEF must stop canals in irrigated villages of Narmada valley

NAPM demands protection of Ecology, Agriculture and Livelihoods

The National Alliance of People's Movements expresses its shock and anguish at the continuing destruction of thousands of hectares of well-irrigated lands in the Nimad region of the Narmada valley due to the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar canals, being pushed without compliance with the mandatory environmental safeguard measures and without assuring prior rehabilitation with alternative land and livelihood to thousands of affected families. 

Having visited the agro-rich valley and having seen the self-reliant livelihoods of the farmers and adivasis, already threatened by the giant Sardar Sarovar Dam, we are appalled that the Madhya Pradesh Government has embarked on an irrational and destructive agenda of excavating huge canals through the very same villages, already in the submergence area of the SSP! This is an unnecessary burden on the people and the State exchequer, the High Court of M.P. ruled in November 2009.

We have been observing that the multi-disciplinary Expert Committee appointed by the MoEF in 2008 and chaired by Former FSI Director General, Dr. D. Pandey has submitted a series of Reports to the Ministry, pointing out glaring non-compliance of the various stipulations in the clearances and guidelines to the SSP, ISP & OSP.  The Committee clearly concluded that the command area development plans for both the canals are incomplete and cannot be approved. We only find it reasonable that the Committee's conclusion in its July 2010 report (4^th interim report) on no further land acquisition and canal construction and recommendation that the Supreme Court may withdraw its order of temporarily permitting the canal work must be accepted and upheld by the Ministry as well.

Narmada will be yet another litmus test for the Environment Minister, Mr. Jairam Ramesh and we await his immediate decision to stop the canal work, as per the latest order of the Supreme Court of January 27^th, 2011; until all the environmental pre-conditions are fully complied with and rehabilitation is carried out as per the state policy and judicial dicta. We expect him to save thousands of hectares of irrigated land on the river bank, falling in the catchment area of Sardar Sarovar and Maheshwar Dams. Both in Narmada and elsewhere, the Ministry must take a progressive view that agriculture is indeed a part of 'environment' and harm to the nation's agriculture is a threat to the environment itself.

The country has witnessed massive devastation of agriculture due to water logging, salinization etc. in the case of many other irrigation projects across the country whenever the command area plans and works have been neglected. Such unwanted and unwarranted destruction should be averted by all 'costs', as rightly indicated by the M.P. High Court itself in its judgment in the canals case. The NVDA must explain to the Court as to how and why is it quoting shockingly low figures of irrigated area in the command area, when as per the M.P. Govt's own DPRs of 1982-83 for both the Dams, the existing area under irrigation was not less than 22,000-29,000 ha.  

We demand accountability from the Madhya Pradesh Government which is committing absolute contempt of the High Court and Supreme Court's Orders by pushing ahead the canal work beyond the stipulated period of 10 weeks (which expired in May 2010), without MoEF's approval and is not even providing alternative land in rehabilitation to those oustees who have already lost their land to the canals and are facing a situation of severe deprivation, thus violating the Supreme Court' interim order and the state Rehabilitation Policy.

We find truth, both in the demands of the farmers and also in the meticulous findings of the People's Tribunal Report of Justice (Retd.) A.P. Shah (June 2010) and call upon the Ministry to issue directions to the state government to review the canal network and exclude the already irrigated areas, initiate dialogue with the river-bank farmers and adivasis, minimize displacement and rehabilitate all the affected oustees. We stand in solidarity with the people, resisting the illegalities in the name of the canal work and wish to state that such non-participatory 'development', is a farce on the Indian Constitution, people's basic rights and rule of law itself.  

Aruna Roy	Swami Agnivesh	Kuldip Nayyar	Sandeep Pandey	Kavitha Srivastava
Rajendra Ravi	Arvind Kejriwal	Mukta Srivastava	Sister Celia	Arundharti Dhuru
Anand Mazgaonkar	Bhupender Rawat	Gabriele	Hussain Master	Ramakrishnam Raju
Prafulla Samantara	Kamayani Keki	S. Vombatkare (Retd. Maj. Genl)

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Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/