Peoples' Audit of SEZs held on Sunday

Panel visits Verna & Keri SEZ sites

On 19 December 2009, the panel of experts who have come down to Goa for the PEOPLES' AUDIT OF SEZs (on Sunday, 20 Dec 2009, Caritas Hall, Panaji, Goa) visited the SEZ sites of Raheja at Verna and later Meditabs at Keri. They included Shekhar Singh, Adv Prashant Bhushan, Adm Ramdas, Kalpana Sharma and K B Saxena. Also present were Preeti Sampat, Sumanya Velamur, Nikhil Dey, Prasad Bhagwe, Mike and Mukta Shrivastava.

They were joined by Charles Fernandes, Franky Monteiro, Carmen Miranda, Peter Gama and other villagers at Verna. At Keri they were received by Rohidas Satarkar, Ramkrishna Jhalmi, Swati Kerkar, Dilesh Hazare, Dr Videsh Jhalmi and other villagers. Pravin Sabnis, Fr Simon Fernandes, Solano D'Souza and filmmaker Stalin K Padma was also present for the field visit

Earlier they visited and expressed their solidarity with persons from mining affected villages who were sitting on a day long fast at Azad Maidan. They also visited the Verna site where toxic industrial waste is being irresponsibly burnt.

Peoples' Audit of SEZs

PEOPLES' AUDIT OF SEZs

Sunday, 20 Dec 2009, Caritas Hall, Panaji, Goa.

Panelists: Shekhar Singh, Adv. Prashant Bhushan, Admiral (retd) Ramdas, Devinder Sharma, Kalpana Sharma, KB Saxena

Observers: Medha Patkar and others

AGENDA:

9.30 am: Overview of the struggle against SEZs in Goa – Charles Fernandes

10am-12noon: Presentations by villagers from Keri, Verna Loutolim, Sancoale, Betul

12noon: The social impact of SEZs - Fr Maverick

12.30 pm: SEZs negate Panchayati Raj – Soter D’Souza

1.00 pm: Lunch

2.00 pm: RTI unearthed the SEZ scam - Franky Monteiro

2.30 pm: Irresponsible Industrialisation – Allan Faleiro

3.00 pm: Panelists Speak

4.00 pm Audit concludes with PRESS CONFERENCE

Criminal burning of Industrial Waste at Verna

On 10 December, SVM activists led the media to a private site on Verna plateau

where Industrial Waste is being burnt in a private property

sans any procedures for the last 8 months.

Children as young as 15 years are doing the toxic job.

Seeing the media coming, they began to douse the fire with water.

This environmental crime is happening in the backyard of Goa's Environment Minister.

check out the pics on

http://picasaweb.google.com/pravinsabnis/Verna10Dec09#

SEZ case hearing adjourned to Feb 9

TNN 2 December 2009, 05:25am IST
PANAJI: The high court of Bombay at Goa on Monday adjourned the hearing of petitions pertaining to the special economic zones (SEZ) to February 9, 2010.
A division bench comprising Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice N A Britto deferred the hearing of the petitions filed by six SEZ promoters—Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd, Peninsular Pharma Research Centre Pvt Ltd, Paradigm Logistic & Distribution Private Ltd, Planetview Mercantile Company Pvt Ltd, Inox Mercantile Company Pvt Ltd and Maxgrow Finlease Pvt Ltd—challenging the show cause notices issued by Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) over the withdrawal of land allotted to them (promoters) after the state government changed its SEZ policy. While adjourning the hearings, the bench directed the state government to file its reply to the amended petitions by January 9, 2010. Further, the SEZ promoters have been directed to file their rejoinder to the government's reply, if any, within two weeks thereafter. The court had on July 27 allowed the petitioners to amend their petitions in view of the withdrawal of the SEZ policy by the state government on June 15. The government had not filed any reply to these amended petitions. While adjourning the hearing of the petitions, the bench told the advocates appearing on behalf of the petitioners and the respondents that no further adjournments would be granted, and also that the bench was inclined to take up the petitions for final disposal on February 9. The SEZ promoters in their petitions pleaded that since they invested heavily in the projects, they suffered huge losses after stop-work orders were issued by the state government. Meanwhile, on February 9, the court will also hear the public interest litigations filed by the villagers of Keri, Sancoale and Verna, challenging GIDC's decision to allot land in their respective villages on lease agreements to the SEZ promoters. The villagers have complained that the land was allotted fraudulently.