GUWAHATI, March 1 ? Noted environment activist Medha Patkar today sounded all the North Eastern States to guard their interests against the Central government?s move to link all the river basins in the country. The Save Narmada Movement crusader, Smt Patkar raised the alarm against the proposed river networking terming it an effort to market and corporatise rivers in the country by the vested politicos in connivance with corporate houses.
Addressing the media here today midway her nationawide tour on bahalf of National Alliance of People?s Movement (NAPM), Smt Patkar stated that it was foolish on part of some of the top scientists in the country to favour linking of river basins without making proper assessment of the impact on people and the ecology as a whole. She said the Central government which over the years has failed to provide the basic needs ? roti, kapra and makan? to its people through centralised planning and resource management, was now turning its eye to water resources of the country, a community property, to hand it over to the Corporate sector on a platter. ?After ensuring centralised management of country?s rivers through the proposed basins linking, every politician will like to have a river in his constituency which will lead to widespread conflict in the country,? she obseved.
?Centralised management has been bad and Corporatised management will be worse,? she warned stating that it is time the community be granted its right over the natural resources. Ms Patker called upon the resource rich North Eastern States to guard against the design to corporatise their resources and told these States to manage their rivers themselves by engaging the community. About the 28 different dam projects planned for the North Eastern region, she called for adequate impact study as well as considering the opinion of the community which has the undisputed right over the local water resources. She said mega dam projects should be avoided as those invariably led to massive displacement of people and catastrophic ecologiocal imbalance.
Reiterating her demand for granting the community the right over natural resources, the Save Narmada Movement pioneer raised the alarm : ?Privatisation or corporatisation of natural resources in the country in the guise of globalisation tantamounts to threaten the sovereignty of the people.Now the rivers in the country are targeted by the corporate houses to market their fluid resource and in the process will make the streams inaccessible to the very community living on the bank.? Referring to the undercurrent of communalism that has gripped the nation, the NAPM leader stated that communalisation was another major threat to bio-diversity which is deeply linked to cultural diversity.She called for universal condemnation of all sorts of communal outbursts and activities like rath yatras in the country. Stating that the whole community in the country clamouring for peace, food, shelter and employment, Ms Patkar denounced raised allocation for Defence in the Budget stating that the ground reality suggested that hiking the defence allocation would hardly ensure peace in the country.
The NAPM team headed by Ms Patkar has been touring the length and breadth of the country as part of its campaign ?save the nation, build the nation?.After covering 19 States in the country, the tour which got off in Kerala, will terminate at Ayodhya with a firm resolve to remove the accummulated layers of communalism and fanaticism over the disputed site there. ?Ayodhya land dispute is between the people and the State, not between a Tagodia and someone else,?Ms Patkar said.
Earlier, talking to this newspaper, Sri Gogoi hinting that the State Government has run out patience disclosed that a meeting with the all the public sector oil companies would be called by Assam Government shortly to explore the possibility of transferring the Rs 3,700 crore project from the current promoter Reliance. The proposal mooted once earlier also is being considered seriously this time, as there has been no forward movement on breaking the deadlock. The meeting proposed by the Chief Minister would help the State Government to gauge the mind of the public sector oil companies on the project.
Two oil companies including the Oil India Limited (OIL) and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) are already involved with the project and are the main supplier of the feedstock. The Chief Minister, meanwhile, said that though he has been assured at the highest-level that the Union Cabinet would shortly consider the enhanced financial requirement for the project, he has decided to explore all other possibilities. The need for additional financial commitment has arisen because of the decision to use LPG as feedstock to make up the deficit supply of gas. But question that hangs over State Government is whether the oil PSUs would be keen to take up the project. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry has already explored that possibility by entrusting the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) to conduct an independent assessment of the project.
Although, it is not yet clear as to why the Petroleum Ministry wanted a second assessment study of the project at this stage, indications were that Petroleum Ministry was preparing to have GAIL stand by to take over the project GAIL, meanwhile, had the Engineers India Limited (EIL) conduct the study. According to sources in the Petroleum Ministry, GAIL has now indicated that as per a feasibility report submitted by EIL, the project is not a viable proposition.
The project has ran into rough weather after it was found that there is not enough gas out of the Assam fields to support a two-lakh-tonne-per-annum ethylene plant. The shortfall was initially planned to have been made up by using naphtha but later it was decided that LPG should be used as an additional feedstock. It has now been found that there would be a huge subsidy component involved for providing gas and LPG to the project at concessional rates.
According to Petroleum Ministry?s calculation, the gas cracker project would create a turnover of around Rs 617 crore annually on which the yearly feedstock subsidy would be in the order of Rs 370 crore for the first seven years and Rs 430 crore for the rest of the project period. The amount would be over and above the one-time capital subsidy of Rs 377 crore that has already been promised to the project. Meanwhile, the Chief Minister said that he wanted the State?s MPs to first concentrate on the twin issues of implementation of the gas cracker project and the State?s perennial financial crisis.