Movement for People-centred Development (MPCD) is taking out a rally from the railway station here and later hold a public meeting at the Gandhi statue near the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation on Monday to protest destructive development and to educate the public on how public hearings have been reduced to a ritual , according to Prof K. Babu Rao, its convener.
He said at a press meet here on Sunday that the rally would start at 3.30 p.m and culminate in a public meeting at 5 p.m.
The meeting would mainly focus on how environmental public hearings being held to seek public opinion in support and against various projects coming up in coastal areas had turned into a farce.
False cases
Mr Babu Rao said there was now an undeclared Emergency in the country.
“Civil society activists attending public hearings are being chased and beaten by the police. Attempt to murder, rioting and arson and other cases are being foisted against them,” he alleged, citing the example of the incidents at a public hearing in the Rambilli mandal of Visakhapatnam district. He said the police had foisted false cases against the activists. He said that, in most of the public hearings, officials were behaving like representatives of project proponents.
He narrated at length the bitter experiences of civil society members at various public hearings. He said in most Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) studies commissioned by the project proponents, details regarding the risks involved and pollution likely to be caused were not being divulged. “In at least 10 cases, we have proved that the agencies conducting EIA have resorted to suppression of facts,” he claimed.
Mr Babu Rao wondered why the numerous Pollution Control Boards were accepting the EIA studies conducted on unscientific lines.