ACT FOR SIKKIM NOW

NEWS FROM Gangtok :

Mega Hydel Project planned to submerge virgin forests of Sikkim!

The argument that the mega hydel project is needed to gain revenue is as strange and phony as the picture on the right. Why would the Centre freeze grants to Sikkim? Which are the private comapnies that will benefit from this Hydel project? Is this a state-owned project?

Members of Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT) have come down heavily on the ‘coercion, subjugation and administrative intimidation’ that the people of Dzongu are being subjected to.


ACT members say that government functionaries were resorting to pressure tactics to gain support for the Teesta hydel power schemes.


The allegations followed after Dzongu MLA Sonam Gyatso Lepcha came up with signatures of 86 people, apparently in favour of the power project, after a meeting on June 21.

“Most of the landowners are primitive tribesmen, docile, god-fearing and submissive by nature and a majority of them do not want to part with their ancestral land,” said Tseten Lepcha, the chief coordinator of ACT. “But they are being threatened that if they do not part with their lands all government facilities will be stopped. All those fighting for their lands, rights and future are being branded anti-national and politically motivated.”


Pressure tactics are not new to Sikkim politics, or to politics anywhere in India. During the raj of the Sikkim Sangram Parishad under Mr Nar Bahadur Bhandari, pressure was of a far more direct kind. I remember when his Sangram Youth Wing came to 'apply pressure' following an article that appeared in the Sikkim Express, or how the district administration applied 'pressure' to the publisher of Forthrightly, a Sikkim weekly to stop a very popular column on Sex Education and HIV issues called 'Body Talk'.


However, read on:





“The government should settle the matter amicably,” said Mr Thukchuk Lachungpa, president of Citizen Forum. He said that if the government still fails to act, Citizen Forum is ready to join the hunger strike.


The Sikkim Pradesh Congress Committee is also supporting the ACT. The party has appealed to all the NGOs and political parties to extend their support for satyagraha and the strike to check the arbitrary, thoughtless, discriminatory and anti-people activities of the state government and “save Sikkim from becoming another Nandigram and Singur.”


Mr NB Bhandari, SPCC president, said: “Even the locals need legal permission to go there because it is a restricted area. How can these power projects be constructed there?”


Mr Bhandari said.





That's a laugh. Sikkim will never become another Nandigram and Singur. There are too few people. Would Mr Bhandari have sung the same tune had his own party been in power? I would say, yes, because Mr Bhandari has fought valiantly for Sikkimese identity.


The issue is whether we need to submerge our beautiful hills which have pristine forests, rare butterflies, even rarer species of orchids. It is one of the last sanctuaries for Alpine flora and fauna. It is the homeland of the Lepchas, the vanishing tribe. This is a Human rights' issue that must be raised.


LET'S ACT NOW AND RAISE THE ISSUE ON EVERY FORUM AVAILABLE.


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