By Rajiv Shah  Despite wide talk of Gujarat being No 1 in things financial, top rating agency Cisil has found that the state is failing to improve upon its financial inclusion index compared to most of India.  A new report by the top consulting firm, Crisil, has revealed that the financial inclusion index, called Inclusix – a concept it worked out in alliance with the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, to find out how deep is financial penetration among larger sections of population – has revealed that Gujarat has failed to improve its performance over the last four years in providing the three critical parameters of banking services, viz. branch penetration, deposit penetration, and credit penetration. Titled “Crisil Inclusix: An Index to Measure India’s Progress on Financial Inclusion”, this is the second report in a year brought out by India’s authoritative consulting firm, which is supported by the well-known US rating agency, Standard & Poor. Dated January 2014...

By Our Representative The latest figures released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest that the levels of industrial effluents discharge through the common effluent treatment plants (CETP) in chemical industrial estates across Gujarat continue to remain “high” and “worrisome”. Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti’s Rohit Prapati and six other environmental activists in a statement, quoting CPCB figures, have alleged, “More worrying as the situation has not changed much after the problem of industrial pollution first came to light in the nineties.”

One of the agariya houses destroyed by authorities By Our Representative The Agariya Hit Rakshak Manch (AHRM), an NGO working among the saltpan workers of the Little of Kutch in Gujarat, has strongly protested against a demolition drive carried out by the local administration against a settlement of 78 houses of agariyas bordering the Rann. In a statement, AHRM has said, “On December 27, 2013, the block revenue officer of Patadi taluka, district Surendrangar, got bulldozer and police to a demolish settlement of 78 agariyas. When people started lying down in front of the bulldozer, police forcefully made them sit in vehicles, and then started demolition.”

NHRC chairman KG Balakrishnan By Our Representative The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), taking cognisance of the social boycott of Dalits of Dagavadia village in Mehsana district of North Gujarat, has sought a complete action taken report (ATR) by the state authorities of the Gujarat government on what has been done to assuage feelings of caste discrimination in the village. The report, the NHRC has insisted, should reach its office “within four weeks” on receipt its notice. The NHRC, which sent its notice to the district magistrate, Mehsana, on December 20, said action taken by the state authorities should be “appropriate.”

By Our Representative In a clear case of “indifference”, the Gujarat government has ignored a National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) advice, sent in the form of a “recommendation”, to pay up Rs 5 lakh each to five workers who had died of the deadly silicosis disease about three years ago. The state-based NGO People’s Training and Research Centre (PTRC), Vadodara, in a statement, said the NHRC had acted on its complaint in 2011 and arrived at the conclusion that the Gujarat government had failed to ensure safety standards in stone cutting units, operating in Godhra, Gujarat, where these workers were employed, but as it has refused to act within six weeks, given by the NHRC, making PTRC to write a letter to Gujarat chief secretary Varesh Sinha to enforce NHRC recommendation.

Symbolic burning of Manu Smriti on a four feet candle light By Our Representative Senior Dalit rights activists in have Gujarat declared that, while they do not oppose Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s decision to build the world’s highest statue in the memory of Sardar Patel, they would want that Dr BR Ambedkar’s statue should be even higher. Making the announcement amidst a huge applause by the Dalits from several villages that had come to attend a non-political meeting at Badarkha village, south of Ahmedabad, senior human rights activist Martin Macwan, founder of Navsarjan Trust, said, “Dr Ambedkar’s contribution stands taller as he fought casteism in all its manifestations and created a constitutional framework for India providing equality to all.”

New National Sample Survey report points towards prevalence of poor sanitary conditions in rural Gujarat By Rajiv Shah  Rural Gujarat is known to have poor malnutrition levels. Malnutrition and sanitation are both interrelated. A new National Sample Survey Organization report has suggested that the state’s performance in providing sanitation to its rural population is not up to the mark.  In a major revelation, the new National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) report, “Key Indicators of Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition in India”, released in December 2013, has found that Gujarat’s performance in providing sanitary and hygienic conditions to its rural population is not progressing well enough. In fact, if the data are indication, Gujarat’s performance on this score cannot be said to considered “vibrant” in any sense. The NSSO survey data suggest that Gujarat is an average performer, especially on issues related with sanitation. If the report is to be ...

By Rajiv Shah  The latest National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report, “Key Indicators of Urban Slums in India”, released in December 2013 and based on survey the top statistical body carried out in the second half of 2012, has once again suggested that Gujarat’s slums are one of the worst in India insofar as providing basic infrastructural facilities are concerned. Rajiv Shah takes a closer look at the report: While Gujarat’s slums, numbering 2,923 (both notified and non-notified), form 8.72 per cent of all slums in the country (33,510), the three states with higher number of slums than Gujarat are Maharashtra (7,723), Andhra Pradesh (3,956) and West Bengal (3957). Despite a relatively higher number, what is particularly appalling is, Gujarat slums fail to score better than most states whether it is pucca houses, tapped water, electricity, pucca roads, latrines, drainage, or garbage disposal. While the survey results do not show a complete all-India picture, as results of ...

By Our Representative Does the National Green Tribunal (NGT) believe that the well-known polluters pay principle should be applied in exceptional cases only? It would seem so, if a recent judgment it delivered is any guide. Giving its order in a case filed by Gujarat’s environmental body, Paryavaran Mitra, against Hanjer Biotech Energies Pvt Ltd (HBEPL), contracted to dispose of solid waste by the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC), the NGT has reluctantly said the principle be applied on HBEPL. In an order delivered on December 20, it said it believes that the “polluter pays principle” ought to be applied in “peculiar circumstances” alone.

By Our Representative Acting on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed jointly by the top Gujarat-based environmental body, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), and the Farmers’ Action Group (FAG), the Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the chief secretaries of 19 Indian states, including Gujarat, seeking response on the demand by the petitioners to implement the prescribed pollution control norms, even as ensuring implementation of the “polluter pays” principle in its real spirit,  instead of providing huge subsidies in the name of controlling pollution.

By Our Representative The tribal body opposing the construction of Garudeshwar weir, about 12 kilometres downstream of Narmada dam, the Sitter Gaam Adivasi Sangathan (SGAS -- Tribal Organisation of Seventy Villages), has taken strong exception to the Gujarat government’s offer of a “rehabilitation package” to seven villages – Gora, Vasantpura, Nana Pilariya, Indravarna, Garudeshwar, Gabhana and Kevadia – which it has alleged will face unprecedented adverse impact of the Rs 400 crore project.

By Our Representative The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sharply criticized the Gujarat government for failing to ensure that stone cutting units operating in the state complied by the “standards of safety” and were taking “steps for diagnosis and treatment” of those who suffered from the deadly silicosis disease. Referring to a complaint filed by Jagdish Patel of the People’s Training and Research Centre (PTRC), Vadodara, seeking the NHRC’s intervention in payment of compensation to five workers employed in stone crushing factories in Godhra town, who had died because of silicosis, the NHRC said, “The state cannot escape the liability to compensate the families of the deceased labourers.”

CRY's new campaign banner By Our Representative The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which created a flutter by grabbing 28 of the 70 assembly seats in Delhi recently, has come down heavily on Gujarat’s struggling civil society for being “too soft” towards government authorities. Speaking at a workshop organized by high-profile non-profit advocacy group Child Rights and You (CRY), meant to ask political parties to include child rights issues in their election manifestos ahead of the 2014 polls, AAP’s Gujarat convener Sukhdev Patel said, “The 10 demands you have identified are very weak. You do not aggressively insist that child rights be included in manifestos. Your tone seems suggest you are, as if, begging from them.”

By Our Representative Long wait for metro rail in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s business capital, is now bogged into yet another indecision – a group of ministers (GoM) appointed by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is unable to finalize the route in order to put afloat the Rs 22,000 crore project for three months now. Well-placed Gujarat Sachivalaya sources say, the ministers are so busy in such "non-issues" like collecting iron all over India for the Statue of Sardar Patel, planned in the midst of Narmada river, that they have "no time to look into the metro project."

By Our Representative Movement against “indiscriminate” acquisition of land for industrial use has come to Ahmedabad’s footsteps. Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG), the state body which led a campaign against Mandal-Becharaji special investment region (SIR) in North Gujarat, forcing the Gujarat government to remove 36 of the 44 villages from the SIR area, held its first meeting to give vent to “people’s anger” against the formation of Gujarat’s biggest SIR – in Dholera region in Ahmedabad district.

By Our Representative The RTI on Wheels, a state-wide campaign launched by Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) for making right to information (RTI) Act as an important took to gather information from government circles on issues of public concern, has claimed huge popular support in the two districts of Gujarat it has visited so far – Bahaskantha and Sabarkantha. Already, the RTI awareness campaign has gone around 110 villages, where over one lakh pamphlets are said to have been distributed, with people coming forward to get help from activists on RTI on Wheel on drafting RTI applications.

By Rajiv Shah  NGO Sahyog Charitable Trust has found the hard way how Gujarat’s authorities refuse to implement the right to education (RTE) Act unless judicial intervention is sought. How negligent Gujarat authorities have been towards implementing the RTE Act was revealed by the manner in which they have treated the Gujarat High Court order of February 9, 2012, in which the Municipal School Board, on the basis of the affidavit it filed, was directed to construct a new school in Vatva area within two years’ time, where poor and neglected children could study. The order had said, till the school began, the children should get the benefit of Special Training Programme Centre, where they had been provided an alternative. So far, the board has not begun the construction work of the new school, which is proposed to be situated about 1.4 km away from the slum area. While the deadline is to expire in February 2014, for all practical purposes, non-implementation of the order should mean, ...

By Our Representative Participating at the national consultation in New Delhi, organized by India's civil society network National Alliance of People's Networks (NAPM), experts and politicians “expressed extreme” concern over World Bank president Dr Jim Yong Kim’s “evasive” attitude towards the environmental and livelihood concerns over the Tatas’ decision to expand the ultra mega power plant at Mundra in Kutch district, Gujarat. Organized jointly with the Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangthan (MASS), which has been protesting against the UMPP's alleged environmental damage and adverse impact on people's livelihood, the consultation criticized the World Bank for ignoring its ombudsman’s views on the subject.

By Rajiv Shah Apprehensions about viability of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s pet Rs 2,500 crore project, to built as the world’s tallest statue in the memory of Sardar Patel, are now coming from unexpected quarters, albeit “off the record.” One of the topmost government officials, known to be close to Modi, told Counterview on condition of anonymity that several “issues” about practicality of the project – which is part of the overall Modi drive to turn the area surrounding the Narmada dam into a major tourist attraction – have “yet to be resolved”.

By Rajiv Shah  Though prepared by Bangalore-based tourism NGO Equations in 2008, the five-year-old report, “Public Purpose?”, suggests how relevant its observations are even today at a time the entire Kevadia Colony, next to the Narmada dam, alongside the surrounding rural areas, are being proposed as a major tourism site in Gujarat. The report had predicted that the tourism project would dispossess tribals of 51 plus villages of their land, even as pointing towards how the project is being promoted in complete violation of the laws which make tribal self-rule mandatory in tribal-dominated areas.  What makes the Equations report, “Public Purposes?”, particularly intriguing is that the tourism project around the Narmada dam is today in the eye of storm, five year after Equations, the tourism NGO, brought it out. It is being developed as part of the Gujarat government decision to build world’s highest statue, Statue of Unity, in the memory of Sardar Patel. Already, work for the ...

By Our Representative The Gujarat government’s failure to develop the Narmada canal network to take irrigation waters to the footsteps of the farmers’ fields in North Gujarat and beyond has begun to harm hundreds of saltpan workers in the Little Rann of Kutch. According to the latest information available from the Rann, the Narmada waters, considered the lifeline of Gujarat, are allowed to flow relentlessly into the Rann’s wide expanses via Banas river without taking into account whom is it may harming. In fact, government officials’ explanation is, in case they do not release the unused waters into the Rann, it might “harm the canal” – hence they have “no other option but to release them.”

By Our Representative The Gujarat government, especially the chief minister’s office (CMO) appears  to be feeling shy of coming up with details on environmental clearance, if any, provided to the Statue of Unity, planned as the highest statue in the world in the memory of Sardar Patel. Instead of giving a written reply on the crucial issue to senior environmentalist Rohit Prajapati and other experts and activists who had sought in writing details of environmental clearance, a letter sent by the CMO to him evasively wants him to “contact” an additional secretary in the water resources department to “clarify” the state government’s position on the matter.

By Rajiv Shah  A new study, carried out by a group of scholars led by Prof Usha Ram of the Centre for Global Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, “Neonatal, 159 month, and under-5 mortality in 597 Indian districts, 2001 to 2012: estimates from national demographic and mortality surveys”, has found that Gujarat’s performance in achieving the millennium development goal (MDG) for bringing down mortality rate of under-five children has been the poorest among the group of 11 rich Indian states. A complete study of all Indian states and their districts, the big richer states focused are – Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karantaka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh. The scholars – who include Prabhat Jha, Faujdar Ram, Kaushalendra Kumar, Shally Awasthi, Anita Shet, Joy Pader, Stella Nansukusa and Rajesh Kumar – have found that in Gujarat, in 2012, the under-five morta...

By Our Representative Asad Shekh, age 35, has become the ninth victim of the deadly silicosis this year in Gujarat. Sheikh, who died of the disease on December 12, 2013, at his home in Pirajpur village in Khambhat taluka, was under treatment for the last two years and was bed-ridden for the last four months. Last he was having treatment at the clinic of People's Training and Research Centre (PTRC), Vadadara. Sheikh worked as agate worker forthe last 15 years, said Jagdish Patel, who runs PTRC, an NGO fighting for the cause of silicosis victims in Gujarat as also neighbouring states.

Rich farmers "opposing" SIR By Rajiv Shah The Gujarat government may have gone on the back foot by excluding 36 of the 44 villages from its proposed special investment region (SIR) in the Mandal -Becharaji area of North Gujarat, but now there is enough reason for it to "cheer". Sharp rise in the land prices in the eight villages that will now be included in the newly-formed SIR – Bhagapura and Shihor of Detroj taluka, Hansalpur-Becharaji, Sitapur, Udhroj, Udhrojpura and Ukardi of Mandal taluka, Chandanki village of Becharaji taluka – is leading to a situation where a section of the rich landowners of rest of the 36 villages are said to be regretting why they protested against SIR.

By Rajiv Shah  The proposed Dholera special investment region is likely to lead to large-scale changes in livelihood patterns, as and when the plan to convert the area into an industrial-urban hub succeeds. The “Draft Environmental Impact Assessment of Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) In Gujarat” – prepared for the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Ltd by the Senes Consultants India Pvt Ltd for environmental public hearing on January 3, 2014 – has suggested that there will be large-scale impact on the livelihood patter in the “sparsely populated” 930 sq km area, consisting of 22 villages, which will form the DSIR, and which is proposed to be converted into a modern industrial urban township over a period of three decades. The report says, “As per the land use/ land cover (LU/LC) studies carried out for Dholera SIR, highest LU/LC class is agriculture land, constituting 47.46 per cent of the study area, comprising of fallow land (39.97 per cent) or crop...

Dead mangroves at Hazira port By Our Representative In what is being described by the Conservation Action Trust (CAT), a non-government organisation, as a "landmark judgment", the National Green Tribunal (West Zone) has, in an order dated December 9, 2013, barred the Gujarat government to allow destruction of mangroves in any part of the state without the prior approval of the tribunal. The tribunal order came in response to the CAT’s application No 35 before it to prevent unprecedented mangroves destruction it found was being carried out in Gujarat in name of industrial development.

By Rajiv Shah  The new environment impact assessment report proposed for the development of Dholera special investment region, being planned as a “dream city” by the Gujarat government, admits that the area where the new industrial township is being planned is flat, low lying and is prone to flood, and things may aggravate in case of urbanization.  The new draft report, “Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) in Gujarat”, prepared by SENES Consultants India Pvt Ltd, for the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation, New Delhi, for environmental public hearing slated on January 3, 2013, has identified “flooding from inundation by the sea and from seasonal monsoon rains” as one of two most important problems to be reckoned with while developing the area. The other problem is that of seismicity. The DSIR is to be developed south of Ahmedabad city on a 900 square kilometer area as a modern industrial township with a populat...