[sustran] FW: Mumbai Pune Expressway

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

This important item came in from a new contact in India, I am sure that Sujit Patwardhan will welcome any constructive comments and help that anyone on the list can offer. Their campaign appears to deserve our support.

Paul

SUSTRAN Resource Centre
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sujit Patwardhan <sujit at giaspn01.vsnl.net.in>

19 November 1998
Dear Friends, 
It is time for all of us to press for our constitutional "Right to
Information". All our campaigns against wrong and environment destroying
development become last minute "fire fighting battles" because authentic
information is never let out by the project proponents/ Government. It is
not enough to rely on Public Notifications under the Town Planning or
Environmental Laws, because that is treated as a mere formality. Thorough
analysis and proper study is not possible within this short period of 30 to
60 days which is all they need to give us for sending "suggestions and
objections". 
In this context I thought the enclosed response to an article in the Times
of India may be of interest to many on our list.
--Sujit


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Pari/34/Email/98
19 November 1998

To
The Editor,
Times of India,
Bombay

Dear Sir,

for the Letters to the Editor Column
==========================

Thank you for the excellent report "Expressway threatens to run over
Katkari tribals" by Gunavanthi Balaram in Times of India, Monday 16th
November 1998.

In spite of increasing criticism, all (so called) developmental projects
continue to be pushed through by the State and Central Government using
sheer force. Project affected persons are denied their rights and forcibly
thrown out of the land they have lived on for generations.Rehabilitation
plans are not prepared carefully (and even if they are, they remain on
paper), proper procedure under the law is not followed, full compensation
costs are not included in the project reports, and yet the Government which
is supposed to work in the interest of the people bulldozes all opposition
from citizens and NGOs and goes ahead with its plans, whether for dams,
power plants, industry or expressways. 

It is a sad reflection on the functioning of our Government that even fifty
years after independence its priorities are dictated by those with economic
or political clout than by the needs of the common citizens of this country.  

The Mumbai Pune Expressway is a fraud on the people of Maharashtra, who
will pay through their nose for an un affordable white elephant only to
please the car lobby. The present National Expressway NH4 between Mumbai
and Pune has already been widened to four lanes and will meet the needs of
essential road traffic for the next decade if growth in private vehicles is
controlled. All over the industrially developed nations (particularly in
Europe), it has now being recognized that building more and more
expressways does not solve the traffic problem, but makes it worse. What is
necessary is to improve the present investments in roads and highways to
enable higher throughput of vehicles. This is possible by better traffic
planning, re-alignments of carriageways and removing illegal obstructions
(hand in hand with improving the rail system and reducing the need to
travel by better planning of our urban areas). Unfortunately the government
is hell-bent on constructing this expressway at any cost, even if it is
non-viable. Several NGOs have been asking for authentic documents and
details about this project but the authorities, particularly the
Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) not only refuses to
give any documents but continues to spread mis-information about the
benefits of the project. For example: it calls this a private enterprise
project under BOT (build, operate and transfer) scheme, when actually no
private industry has come forward to take up the offer because it is
non-viable (Reliance Industries withdrew after being convinced that the
project was full of holes). It is being built by the MSRDC which is a State
Government Enterprise. The Maharashtra Government and the MSRDC also claims
that travel time from Mumbai (Dadar) to Pune (Deccan Gymkhana) will be cut
to two and a half hours instead of the present four to five hours along the
National Highway No 4, when their own  project report says that the maximum
saving (for cars) will only be 49 minutes. There are many other doubts
about the economic, financial and social  viability of the expressway
project, to say nothing of the environmental costs to the fragile ecology
of this region,. But despite our constitutional right, the Government gives
no information when it is asked for by individuals or NGOs.

We are therefore grateful to you for this article which highlights the
plight of the Katkari Tribes (who will literally be run-over by the
expressway) and the total apathy of the Government and the bureaucrats. We
hope you will run a series of articles highlighting the other damaging and
doubtful aspects of this project also, so that its real destructive
qualities become evident to the general public.

S.J.Patwardhan
Parisar
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--
Sujit Patwardhan
sujit at giaspn01.vsnl.net.in
--------------------------------------
PARISAR, 
Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007
Tel: 327955

*****************************************************************
"In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- 
there are Consequences."
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--
Sujit Patwardhan
sujit at giaspn01.vsnl.net.in
--------------------------------------
PARISAR, 
Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007
Tel: 327955

*****************************************************************
"In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- 
there are Consequences."
*****************************************************************