Haripur: Land for Nuclear Plant

'Nagarik Mancha' has prepared a report on the proposed Nuclear Plant in Haripur, West Bengal.

BACKGROUND
Even as the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was 'under-consideration', the Government of India decided to set up five coastal nuclear power projects in the country. A 12-member Site Selection Panel, under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), visited a number of coastal districts in India during November 2006. The Site Selection Panel is said to have zeroed in on sites in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. Based on its final report to be submitted to the Atomic Energy Commission, the Government of India will finally decide on the sites. Only after that the Central Government-owned Public Sector Undertaking, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), 'spearheading' India's nuclear power programme, will undertake the job.

The NPCIL, the sole nuclear utility implementing authority, has a total of 16 operational plants with a capacity to generate around 3,900 MW, which is about 2.8% of the total electricity generated in the country. Seven more plants with a combined capacity of 3,000 MW are in advanced stages of construction, the first of which is expected to be operational by March 2007.

In all probability the proposed nuclear power plants will use light water reactors to be run on imported fuel. It is reported that Haripur will boast of six nuclear reactors each of 1650 MW – a total of 10,000 MW of electricity. Since the NPCIL can indigenously produce reactors capable of generating up to 700 MW, the Indo-US Agreement on Sharing of Nuclear Technology could pave the way for the transfer of US technology too.

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One more report on Singur

At the behest of the " Singur Bachao Mahila Mancha" (a platform of women's organisations and individual women who have come together to support the land struggle in Singur) three women activists - Ilina Sen, Scholar on women's studies and founder member of Rupantar, Chattisgarh, Madhuri of National Alliance of Agricultural Workers Unions and the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, M.P. and Kavita Srivastava, National Secretary of the PUCL (all three active in people's struggles in the country) visited the affected villages of Singur over the 16th to the 18th of December.

The objective of their visit was to understand:

• To understand the reasons for the opposition to the Tata Small Car project in Singur, Hoogly District and examine the impact that the consequent displacement and dispossession from land and agriculture would have on the villagers, particularly women.

• Whether force and terror had been used by the West Bengal Government on the people, particularly women in order to acquire the 997.11 acres of land for the purpose of giving it to Tata Motors for setting up a small car plant.

• To understand the process of land acquisition used by the Government of West Bengal in Singur and the nature and amount of compensations being provided to the affected people.

• To examine the issue of a motor vehicle factory being the "Public Purpose" for displacement of people from their multi crop agriculture land. and to examine the viability of the project vis-a vis the stated purpose of "employment generation and socio-economic development."

The team met various stakeholders, including concerned Government officials, those who support the project as well as those who oppose it. The concerned team of women activists met the press on 18^th December, 2006 at the Kolkata Press Club to narrate their experience at Singur to the press and electronic media. Later on, their report was published by Paschimbanga Khet Majoor Samity.

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A Report on the Condition of Workers in Asansol

We found a report on the condition of workers in Asansol. It not only exposed the myth of 'Development by Industrialization', but also presented a very serious approach. We believe it would encourage us to study our society in dialectical and materialistic way.

A Report on Condition of Workers in Asansol

Sudipta Paul


The wheel of industrialization of West Bengal is running very fast with frequent closure of many industries. It does not allow any resistance through out the path of industrialization. The movement against the closure of industries, the scarcity of land, militant movement of the land losers, demand of job of land losers, demand of minimum wages and other facilities etc - whatever happens it is running smoothly at any cost. It's true that with industrialization a number of people will get jobs. One new industrialist of Asansol, Paban Ghugutia said in an interview with a correspondent of "Ananda Bazar Patrika": "Suppose an industry is built up. Unemployed youths will get the jobs. They will earn money. Economic status of the workers will be changed. They will go to market to buy the necessary commodities. Then there will be some sort of economic transactions. So with increase of industry, the life of human beings will also develop." In the course of the economic development, a number of new industrial estates are developing in last fifteen to sixteen years in Asansol area. Mangalpur and Kannyapur are two of them in the Asansol Subdivision. There is also a plan to develop industrial estates adjacent to 55 KM area of G. T. Road from Durgapur to Barakar. Let's see how much industrialization has taken place and how much employment has been generated at the two industrial estates in the field of closed industrial areas of Asansol.

Before 80's, renowned Hindusthan Pilkinton Glass Factory was closed. After that Bengal Paper Mill was closed. From 90's the closing of the industries took an acceleration and within last fifteen years a number of industries have been closed very rapidly.
We give a list of closed industries with manpower.

Hindusthan Pilkinton Glass factory -1600
Bengal Paper Mill -1500
Bharat Aluminium Co. Ltd. -3000
Burn & Co. 1&2 -1400
Cycle Corporation -3000
Indian Iron and Steel Company (Kulty)-3000

Nearly 15000 workers have lost job due to closure of industry. This is only reported and available data of closed industry. There are a number of unreported and unregistered industries which have been closed. The residential area of those industries is becoming abandoned almost. Most of the workers left their companies' quarters to their homeland or went to other places like Kolkata and also Asansol proper in search of their lively hood. A vast area of Kulty Works of IISCO has become a ghost area. The fifth largest Golf Ground of Kulty is remaining in unused condition. However, within the short distance of 250-300 meters a new township is developing surrounding Kulty College which was mostly a forest area. The residential area of the workers of the glass factory is in the same condition. The officers quarters became abundant. But the families of the workers, who have no alternative are remaining in the damaged quarters of the company. Near about 200 families are spending their life in a very miserable condition. Most of the next generation of glass factory workers are day labours or unemployed. Third generation of these families are mostly illiterate due to poverty. One jute mill owner bought the 150 bigha of land of glass factory including the area of quarters at a paltry sum of 4.05 crores. He wants to evict the workers families. But the people unitedly made resistance against the displacement without the banner of any political party one and half years back. This glass factory colony is also a subsidence prone area due to the unscientific coal mining according to the official record of coal company.

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Source

A Survey Report On Singur

Rajesh Datta from 'Bharater Manabatabdi Samity' sent the survey report on Singur prepared by 'Sanhati Udyog'. 'Sanhati Udyog' is a forum of people’s organisations, citizen’s rights organisations, cultural organisations, little magazines and concerned citizens in support of the farmers’ movement to save farmland in Singur.

On an initiative by Sanhati Udyog, a door-to-door ‘people’s survey’ was undertaken during November 2-20, 2006 in the six moujas of Singur where 997 acres of farmland has been acquired by the West Bengal government for Tata Motors to set up a factory. The idea was to get a detailed, first-hand insight into the villagers’ minds regarding the proposed factory and the consequent loss of their farmland.
The survey was necessary because Singur farmers had been resisting the takeover for the past six months and there was a clear case for ‘lack of transparency’ in the state government’s reluctance to provide information related to the land acquisition process. The Chief Minister, the Minister for Industries, their cabinet colleagues and government officials, quoting disparate and random figures, had been repeatedly asserting that the farmers were voluntarily handing over land. However, the administration had failed to come up with a detailed list of who had given how much land. The impression gathered by the ‘Public Hearing’ held in Singur on October 27, in the presence of Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan and writer Mahasweta Devi, displayed a different picture. The survey was taken up in response to such contradictory perceptions.

The team
The survey team consisted of social activists, trade unionists, writers, journalists, teachers and students. A film crew, a media consultant, a writer and others lent a supporting hand. The team members trudged miles through dusty village tracks, often on empty stomachs, stopped passersby on their way to work, knocked on people’s doors, invaded their kitchens, held court in the open, sat in tea-stalls and sought out those working in the fields squatting beside the paddy-enveloped project site. They collected a heap of information by interviewing farmers, checking the land deeds and mutation documents, filling up questionnaires and noting down their observations.
Fact-gathering by such an amorphous group, lacking in professional expertise and method, had its limitations. But an investigation carried out in such close contact with the people was bound to yield the real picture of the impact of farmland-acquisition on the farming communities of Singur. Needless to say, the most enthusiastic response came from the people of Singur whose love and warmth will be hard for the survey team to forget.

Download full text of 'people's survey'