[Reader-list] Fwd: (indiaclimatejustice) Eminent citizens, social organizations and movements from Bengal write to the PM protesting the PMO recommendations against facilitating destruction of forests and biodiversity in the name of development

[Nagraj Adve]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: AIFFM Secretariat <aiffmsecretariat at gmail.com>
Date: 27 January 2013 16:25
Subject: (indiaclimatejustice) Eminent citizens,social organizations and
movements from Bengal write to the PM protesting the PMO recommendations
against facilitating destruction of forests and biodiversity in the name of
development
To: forestrights <forestrights at yahoogroups.com>, indiaclimatejustice <
indiaclimatejustice at googlegroups.com>


*Kolkata, 20/4 Sil Lane, Kolkata 700015*

*27th January, 2013*

* *

* *

*To: *

*Dr. Manmohan Singh *

*Prime Minister of India *

*New Delhi 110001*

011-23019545 / 011-23016857

*Sub: Stop moves to bypass Forest Rights Act when taking forest land for
large projects*

*Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh-ji,*

For the last five years, ignoring protests from both people's organisations
and political parties, and despite the Forest Rights Act 2006, the practice
of illegally grabbing forest land has remained dominantly in vogue in most
of the country.  This happened because the Government of India could not
make up its mind about what it intends to do with the Forest Rights Act,
which recognises people's rights over forest resources and their legal
power to protect and manage them. The land-grab continued despite adverse
comments by a Parliamentary Standing Committee, protests and mobilisations
from across the country, and rhetoric from your government about its
commitment to adivasi rights. Even the Minister of Tribal Affairs in your/
government, Shri Kishore Chandra Deo, has to write twice to highlight this
illegality. Apparently, this has not stopped the Environment Ministry from
indulging in grossly illegal practices of considering and clearing projects
with definite environmental impacts.

The law requires that no forest land can be taken for a project without a
certificate from the affected gram sabhas that their rights under the
Forest Rights Act have been recognised, and that they( gram sabhas) agree
to the diversion. As the Minister of Tribal Affairs himself put it, this is
being "honoured in the breach" and the concerned statutory bodies are
"misleading project proponents and the public", thereby "produc[ing]
conflict, harassment, injustice, delays and litigation."

The question one likes to be answered is how a government that has recently
seen one after another eruption of public anger against its callous and
corrupt favouring of private interests, affords to favour the same
interests at the cost of millions of forest dwelling citizens of this
country, and compromising their legal and constitutional rights?

We now learn from media reports that your office, and in particular a
committee headed by your  Principal Secretary, PMO, Pulok Chatterjee, has
come out with a perfectly shocking state of ‘recommendations’ which aim to
legalize the illegal practices the MoEF has been indulging in granting
forest clearances for most projects. Citing a dubious reason of ‘delays in
project clearances’ –something which none other than your Environment
Minister has shown to be resulting from faulty documentation, fraudulent
proposals and attempts at engaging in speculation—the rights of the some of
the most marginalized and oppressed citizens of the country are to be
sacrificed, by stipulating a series of unacceptable changes in the forest
clearance process which in recent years has been to a great extent
influenced by the order issued by the MoEF on August 2009.  The order which
provided for a much needed regulatory framework to ensure compliance with
both Forest Rights Act and PESA in the forest clearance process stands to
be nullified if the PMO Committee’s recommendations are acted upon: the
recommendations directly violate the FRA and, in Scheduled Areas, the
Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (as well as by implication
the Fifth Schedule itself). Procedural delay cannot be an excuse for
bypassing laws. The alacrity, with which your government seeks to serve the
interests of large corporations and resource grabbers, while paying a lip
service to protecting tribal rights, exposes the real character of the UPA
government's administration.

We condemn this transparently corrupt, illegal and repressive move and
demand. We therefore call upon you to:

   - Uphold and strictly enforce the Forest Rights Act and the 2009 order
   of the Ministry of Environment and Forests for FRA compliance, ensuring
   that no forest land is taken without gram sabha consent and without
   certificates from gram sabhas that rights recognition is complete;
   - Start criminal prosecution against officials who have diverted or
   tried to divert forest land without respecting people's rights;
   - Withhold existing clearances for diversion of forest land. They should
   be cancelled if found to violate the provisions of the Act or the 2009
   order. Where projects have already come up, those affected should be
   rehabilitated as well as granted additional compensation for the criminal
   violation of their rights (along with prosecution of those responsible).


Thanking You



*Mahasweta Devi*, Writer, Winner of Gyanpith and Magsaysay Award Winner



*Dr. Ajit Banerjee*, Ex- Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, West Bengal



*Samar Bagchi*, Ex-Director, Birla Industrial & Technological Museum,
Kolkata



*Dr. Kalyan Rudra*, River Expert, Columnist



*Biswajit Mukherjee*, Ex-Chief Law Officer, Dept. of Environment, Govt. of
West Bengal



*Prof. Sujay Basu*, Scientist



*Prof. Suvendu Dasgupta*, Economist, Columnist



*Jaya Mitra*, Writer, Columnist



*Dr. Meher Engineer*, Ex-Director, Bose Institute, Kolkata



*Naba Dutta*, Columnist and Secretary, Nagarik Mancha

* *

*Jayanto Basu*, Environmentalist



*Balai Soren*, Secretary, Adibasi Banabasi Adhikar Mancho



*Soumitra Ghosh*, Secretary, Nespon, Siligui, West Bengal



*Sasanka Dev*, Secretary, DISHA, Kolkata



*Pradip Chatterjee*, Secretary, National Fishworkers’ Forum



*Gobinda Das*, Secretary, Sundarban Matsyajibi Joutha Sangram Committee



*Tejendralal Das,* President, Dakshin Banga Matsyajibi Forum



On 25 January 2013 19:54, AIFFM Secretariat <aiffmsecretariat at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> *Please circulate widely*
>
>
>
> Dear friends:
>
>
> What we were apprehending for some time now, is finally taking shape. Our
> Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who in the recently concluded
> COP in Hyderabad, India, made commitments to protect our forests and
> biodiversity, has given a go ahead to the recommendations of his own
> committee regarding the dilution of the provisions of the Forest Rights
> Act, 2006 and withdrawal of the Ministry of Environment and Forests
> Notification of August 2009 which requires that for diversion of forest
> lands for non forest purposes, firstly, the rights of the forest dwellers
> have to be settled and secondly, the consent of the gram sabha (village
> council) in favour of the diversion of forest land has to be acquired.
>
>
> While India claims to be a low deforestation country, and the Prime
> Minister’s National Climate Action Plan calls for greening of the country
> and increasing forest cover, our Prime Minister is out to approve further
> destruction and deforestation of our forests, precious biodiversity, the
> habitat of the forest people and trampling of their rights at the behest of
> the corporate and industrial lobby.
>
>
> We need to lodge a strong protest against this move by the Prime
> Minister’s Office, to uphold the rights of the forest people and to protect
> our precious forests and biodiversity.
>
> We have drafted a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard which is
> attached to this email and also the recommendations of the Prime Minister’s
> Committee.
>
>
> We request you to do any of the following:
>
> 1.      Send your endorsement of the letter to us latest by 26th January
> 2013. Or
>
> 2.      Send your own protest letter to the Prime Minister’s office by
> fax at the nos 91-11-23019545 / 91-11-23016857, Or
>
> 3.      Send a protest email to the PMO by clicking the link
> http://pmindia.nic.in/pmsoffice.php and clicking the email link.
>
> Yours in solidarity
>
>
>
> Souparna Lahiri
>
> For All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM)
>
>
> *The endorsements or any other communication can be sent to
> aiffmsecretariat at gmail.com *
>
>  To: Dr. Manmohan Singh
>
> Prime Minister of India
>
> New Delhi 110001
>
> Sub: Reported moves by the Prime Minister’s Office to bypass Forest Rights
> Act when diverting forest land for large projects
>
>
> Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh-ji,
>
> For the last five years, ignoring protests from both people's
> organisations and political parties, and despite the Forest Rights Act
> 2006,  the practice of illegally grabbing forest land has remained
> dominantly in vogue in most of the country.  This happened because the
> Government of India could not make up its mind about what it intends to do
> with the Forest Rights Act, which recognises people's rights over forest
> resources and their legal power to protect and manage them. The land-grab
> continued despite adverse comments by a Parliamentary Standing Committee,
> protests and mobilisations from across the country, and rhetoric from the
> government about its commitment to adivasi rights. Even the Minister of
> Tribal Affairs in your own government, Shri Kishore Chandra Deo, has to
> write twice to highlight this illegality. Apparently, this has not stopped
> the Environment Ministry from indulging in grossly illegal practices of
> considering and clearing projects with definite environmental impacts.
>
>
> The law requires that no forest land can be taken for a project without a
> certificate from the affected gram sabhas that their rights under the
> Forest Rights Act have been recognised, and that they( gram sabhas) agree
> to the diversion. As the Minister of Tribal Affairs himself put it, this is
> being "honoured in the breach" and the concerned statutory bodies are
> "misleading project proponents and the public", thereby "produc[ing]
> conflict, harassment, injustice, delays and litigation."
>
>
> The question one likes to be answered is how a government that has
> recently seen one after another eruption of public anger against its
> callous and corrupt favouring of private interests, affords to favour the
> same interests at the cost of millions of forest dwelling citizens of this
> country, and compromising their legal and constitutional rights?
>
> Instead, we now learn from media reports that your office, and in
> particular a committee headed by your  Principal Secretary, PMO, Pulok
> Chatterjee, has come out with a perfectly shocking state of
> ‘recommendations’ which aim to legalize the illegal practices the MoEF has
> been indulging in granting forest clearances for most projects. Citing a
> dubious reason of ‘delays in project clearances’ –something which none
> other than your Environment Minister has shown to be resulting from faulty
> documentation, fraudulent proposals and attempts at engaging in
> speculation—the rights of the some of the most marginalized and oppressed
> citizens of the country are to be sacrificed. By stipulating a series of
> unacceptable changes in the forest clearance process which in recent years
> has been to a great extent influenced  by the order issued by the MoEF on
> August 2009.
>
>
> The order which provided for a much needed regulatory framework to ensure
> compliance with both Forest Rights Act and PESA in the forest clearance
> process stands to be nullified if the PMO Committee’s recommendations are
> acted upon: the  recommendations directly violate the FRA and, in Scheduled
> Areas, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (as well as by
> implication the Fifth Schedule itself). Procedural delay cannot be an
> excuse for bypassing laws. The alacrity with which the government seeks to
> serve the interests of large corporations and resource grabbers, while
> paying a lip service to protecting tribal rights, exposes the real
> character of the UPA government's administration.
>
>
> We condemn this transparently corrupt, illegal and repressive move and
> therefore call upon you to:
>
>    - Uphold and strictly enforce the Forest Rights Act and the 2009 order
>    of the Ministry of Environment and Forests for FRA compliance, ensuring
>    that no forest land is taken without gram sabha consent and without
>    certificates from gram sabhas that rights recognition is complete;
>    - Start criminal prosecution against officials who have diverted or
>    tried to divert forest land without respecting people's rights;
>    - Withhold existing clearances for diversion of forest land. They
>    should be cancelled if found to violate the provisions of the Act or the
>    2009 order. Where projects have already come up, those affected should be
>    rehabilitated as well as granted additional compensation for the criminal
>    violation of their rights (along with prosecution of those responsible).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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