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Editor’s Note

Tragedy and the Whole Truth

of Kerala devastation

TEHELKA FROM TIME to time has rying, restrictions on energy projects and complete ban
been exposing the government and on new polluting industries. The key recommendations
mafias nexus for illegal mining and of Gadgil submitted in 2011 had suggested against new
recently too we did a series begin- licenses for mining. Also where mining already existed,
ning with our cover story “The it should be phased out in five years by 2016. The report
Black Truth”. The Supreme Court described the entire Western Ghats as an Ecologically
of India has now issued notices to Sensitive zone and recommended that no new dams
the Ministry of Environment, Min - based on large-scale storage and no special economic
istry of Mines and Department of Atomic zones be permitted. The Gadgil Committee said in clear
Energy. However, all leads don’t reach their logical con- terms that clearance should not be given to commis-
clusions and the nature takes it revenge. Way back in sioning of the Athirappilly and Gundia hydel projects.
February 2010, the then Environment Minister Jairam It also went on to suggest against use of steel, cement,
Ramesh had attended a meeting of Save the Western concrete in any new construction and discouraging
Ghats group activists in Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. At the cultivation of annual crops on slopes. However, in
meeting, the activists spoke of threats to biodiversity in the name of development, the report that warned of
the entire 1500 km range along the coast with its foot- an imminent flood was ignored describing it as “too
prints in Kerala and adjoining states because of min- environment-friendly”. Madhav Gadgil has himself
ing, industries, hydropower and other construction. publicly argued that had the concerned state govern-
After the meeting, the minister announced setting up ments implemented the report’s suggestions, the scale
of a 9 member Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel of disaster in Kerala would not have been as huge as
under ecologist Madhav D Gadgil who later submitted a it is -lakhs displaced and the toll close to 400. He has
report on the fragility of Western Ghats. Had the Kerala warned that “Goa may face the same fate as the flood-
Government been responsive to the report of the Gadg- battered Kerala if it does not take precautions on
il committee, the tragedy of this magnitude would not environmental front”. The big question is: Development
have happened. at what cost?
How the government dumped the Gardgil report
could be understood from the fact that a High-Level
Working Group formed in April 2013 found that Ker-
ala State Government in particular had objected to the
Gadgil panel’s proposed ban on sand mining and quar- (CHARANJIT AHUJA)

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*(EDITOR for purpose of PRB ACT 1867) Aamir Shafi E-mail editor@tehelka.com
VOLUME 15, ISSUE NO. 17, 1-15 SEPTEMBER 2018 , RELEASED ON 1 SEPTEMBER, NUMBER OF PAGES INCLUDING COVER 68
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