Opinion UNFULFILLED PROMISES

“The government started this year by claiming that our economy would register a GDP growth rate of 9 per cent. We ended with a growth rate of 6.9 per cent. Industrial growth rate this year ended at a meagre 2.8 per cent as compared to 8.2 per cent last year. In the ‘report card’ issued at this third anniversary celebrations,it is claimed that there is record coal production. What is not said is that the gap between the demand and supply of coal widened to a record level as well; that too despite our immense coal reserves,” it says.

A YEAR OF MAMATA

The CPI weekly New Age wrote about West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s first year in office. It contends that her poor record as CM is “evident” from her walking out of an interview with a TV channel. “Mamata Banerjee,in place of facing the questions,blamed the audience of being agents of (the) opposition… and walked out from the stage. This has been her attitude all through the year. Anything that goes wrong,she blames the Left for it. Net result is that now her supporters too have started believing that Didi may be a good street agitator but has no quality of administration,” it says.

It concludes that her year in office has forced people to reconsider supporting her and cites Mahasweta Devi’s resignation from the chairmanship of the Bangla Academy as proof. “More intellectuals are expressing their anger (at) her authoritarian ways of functioning,” it says.

MINING BILL

In an article,senior CPM leader Brinda Karat criticises the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill 2011,saying that it was designed to promote the interests of private mining companies,not deprived communities. She argues that the Centre and most state governments have,over the years,promoted privatisation by leasing mines to private companies,apart from handing over captive mines of iron ore and bauxite to steel and aluminium corporations.

The MMRD Bill,she says,is to push the deregulation and liberalisation of the mining sector and encourage privatisation. Many of the provisions are designed to attract private investment. “It introduces the concept of high technology reconnaissance,prospecting and exploration licenses,and easy terms of conversion to mining leases to encourage the entry of FDI and foreign companies. It also gives weightage,in the allocation of leases,to criteria that favour such companies and also allows them activity on much larger tracts of land than previously.”

She refers to a provision that makes it mandatory for coal mining companies to give an amount equal to 26 per cent of their profits to the District Mineral Foundation for the welfare of the project-affected people. “Interestingly,the US,which had set up somewhat similar trusts to manage funds paid by companies using the land on reserves owned by Native Indians has recently had to pay compensation of $1.2 billion to 41 Native American communities for ‘mismanagement of the assets’ of the trust… When the affected people do not have a decisive say in the management of such funds… this ‘mismanagement’ is inevitable,” she says.