NEERAJ SAYS.....................

Hi, I wanted to add a comment in the discussion with respect to my article

'Plumbing the Teesta'.

"RTI replies received from the MoEF in September 2006 and January 2007 indicate that the Carrying Capacity Study of the Teesta basin was still not finalised. In March 2007 a meeting was held in Gangtok to get inputs on the draft carrying capacity study. I guess it must be final by now, need to check exact status. But the irony is that the MoEF kept granting clearances to new hydel projects in Sikkim since 2004, more than three years before the study was finalised (that is if it is finalised now!). The condition imposed while granting clearance to Teesta V was unambiguous: ""no other project in Sikkim will be considered for environmental clearance till the carrying capacity study is completed."

Please note that the condition says that the projects should not even be considered for environmental clearance, leave alone grant clearance. But we have seen a mockery of this condition.

Besides the violation of the condition, one needs to know how much the people of Sikkim have really been consulted while carrying out the study? Will the study help in socially and ecologically sensitive development planning or will it be used to simply justify whatever is already planned?

Neeraj"
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Neeraj Vagholikar
Kalpavriksh
Apartment No. 5, Shree Dutta Krupa,
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune - 411004
India
Ph: 91-20-25654239/25675450
email: nvagho@gmail.com
nvagho@vsnl.net
Dammed......... Thats what we are going to be !!!