Between 2005 and 2007 at least 1,200 hectares of grazing land was taken away from villagers. Under Indian law land meant for grazing cattle can be used for something else only if it’s in excess. Villagers in Adani’s SEZ say their grazing land was signed away by earlier village chiefs without their knowledge. Gajendra Sinh Jadeja, the 28-year-old head of Navinal village, says the Gujarat government took some 930,770 square meters of his village’s grazing land for Adani’s SEZ. Adani got it for 19 cents a square meter. Fly ash and saline water from Adani Power and a nearby Tata Power Co. Ltd. plant are spoiling the crops and making the soil less fertile. Jadeja says, “The saline water ruined the soil, and the poor production now is just not worth it”. After years of receiving complaints of environmental abuse, the federal environment ministry finally, in 2012, named a panel–known as the Sunita Narain Committee. In a report last April Narain’s group confirmed that Adani SEZ had violated multiple green rules at different points of its mammoth project–destroying mangroves, filling creeks and causing land and water degradation by dumping fly ash. Residents of Navinal Village, including the head Jadeja, filed in 2011 a petition in the Gujarat High Court after they lost their grazing land to the SEZ. In January, the court declared the SEZ illegal and ordered the companies that had set up factories in there to stop all work. The Supreme Court, India’s highest, has refused to stay the lower court’s decision. With hundreds of millions of dollars already invested–albeit in a project now in legal limbo–the question now is if Adani’s effort has become too big to shut down. The Gujarat High Court passed the ball on that decision to the central government, asking if the project could be granted a belated environmental clearance --Read More At: truthofgujarat/modi-adani-affair-revealed/
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 07:08:11 +0000
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