Modi government has accelerated the decline. The first quarter of 2015 saw the steepest drop in person-days of employment in the history of MGNREGS -- more than half from the first quarter of 2014. That too in the period when a lot of farmers suffered from crop damage due to heavy rains and hailstorms.
Thus the small and medium farmers of India, after being hit in the immediate term by inclement weather, are now facing doom in the short-medium term by shrinking security net of MGNREGS and in the longer term by government's enthusiasm to legalise forcible grabbing of their farmlands for private industry.
Exploitation of Ganga
Clean Ganga mission has been initiated with the participation of five ministries -- Water Resources, now going to be called Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation; Environment and Forests; Power; Tourism; and Surface Transport and Shipping. The Tourism ministry is going to look into how to promote tourism all along Ganga, the Power ministry is going to explore new opportunities of generating hydro-electricity and the Surface Transport and Shipping ministry will see how to use the waterways for facilitating trade.
Hence the mission clean Ganga is not just about cleaning Ganga. In that only the water resources and environment ministries would have been sufficient to undertake the task. The other three ministries are being involved with the objective of commercial exploitation of Ganga.
There have been protests earlier against dams on river Ganga. Persistent efforts of individuals such as Sunderlal Bahuguna and former professor of IIT Kanpur G D Agarwal against big dams on the Ganga have generated awareness about the dangers of such projects in the ecologically fragile region. Lakhs of families who have been displaced by big dams on the Narmada river, and who face submergence because of government's decision to raise dam height in violation of Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal Award, still await rehabilitation. All this demonstrates government's enthusiasm to push large projects without caring for or preparing to compensate the destruction caused to the environment and the lives of displaced communities.
One can find out the impact of big tourism activity on any of cities along Ganga and determine its contribution to making it dirty. Spitting, throwing waste, polythene in Ganga is being thought of as a punishable offence. What is Narendra Modi going to do about the untreated sewage which is allowed to meet not just Ganga but virtually every river in the country including Sabarmati? When will that become a crime?
Modi's plan to clean Ganga with the involvement of agencies which might be looking to make money from their projects could spell a disaster for the holy river and the environment even if we choose not to talk about the lakhs whose lives and livelihood will be affected when these ambitious projects are undertaken. For example, the traditional boatmen and fisherfolk communities are already wary of Modi's plans.
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