“It's a breach of faith," said an indignant V Vivekanandan, convenor of the National Coastal Protection Campaign and a member of the negotiating team that held discussions with the ministry. “We participated in the public hearing processes that were done with Ramesh's blessings. But despite his assurances, our concerns don't reflect in the final notification."
Before the new notification was released on January 7, the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification of 1991 governed India's coastline. But the old law was not comprehensive enough. It did not take into account the diversity of the coastline and was amended 25 times (mostly in favour of developers). There was no clear-cut procedure, timeline and format for obtaining clearances; no post-clearance monitoring mechanism or an enforcement mechanism to check violations. Given the current political thrust — at least on paper — on community-sensitive policy-making, the green lobby thought that here was a real chance to address the problems with the old law. But what has been released by the ministry (“safeguarded liberalisation" in Ramesh's words) has dashed their hopes. Read the full report here.
Source: KumKum Dasgupta, Hindustan Times.
