Government Admits Robbery
After a month, Forest Advisory Committee admits to illegalities
Friends,
Today, a news report (Times of India) announced that the Forest Advisory Committee of MoEF has finally signed its own minutes and recommended the “temporary withdrawal” of forest clearance to the POSCO project. The Committee met on October 25th. It took them a month to sign their minutes. Why?
Because the reason for withdrawal of clearance - “lack of compliance with the Forest Rights Act” - is jargon for saying that the Central and State governments tried to rob people's land. In today's India, so much “investment” and so many companies' profits depend on stealing land and minerals. Hence the Central government cannot admit that its own laws require it to respect the people's will – and take their consent - when taking over forest land.
Unsurprisingly, forest officials want the Ministry to withdraw the August 3rd, 2009 order that explicitly requires them to desist from robbery (which would still be illegal, of course, but without an order everyone can ignore it). They didn't say so before, as till date the Ministry has not complied with this order in any project.
Consider the facts. The POSCO project, like many other projects, was illegally granted final permission to take forest land in December 2009. The clearance was given even though it was in direct violation of the Forest Rights Act and of the Ministry's order of August 3rd, 2009, under which the gram sabhas must certify that rights were recognised and that they consent to the diversion of forest land. To the Campaign's knowledge such certificates have not been obtained in a single project so far.
Within a week the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti and others had objected to this illegal clearance, but nothing was done except a “clarification” intended to dodge the law (the POSCO Enquiry Committee called the letter “a face saving exercise”). Now, fully three different government committees – the Saxena FRA committee, the POSCO Enquiry Committee and now the FAC – have agreed that the clearance was illegal. As of today, it is still standing. This is the way our government practices “inclusive growth.”
For more on the FRA, projects and the August 2009 order, see our page on “Large Projects and Forest Land”:
For more on POSCO, see our page on it: "The POSCO Project."
Campaign for Survival and Dignity
www.forestrightsact.com, 9873657844, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it