Delhi-Mumbai Sangharsh Yatra

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(alongside proposed Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, March 8 – 19, 2013)

Against indiscriminate acquisition of agricultural land, massive displacement, undermining sovereignty of gram sabhas and colossal loss of life and livelihood

Friends, Comrades and Saathis !

Zindabaad !

As Indians, or if not all, then many within government and outside government, seem to love BIG. Big Dams. Big Malls. Big Cities. Or anything Big, Gigantic, Humongous, Megalomaniac !

The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project is such a humongous, megalomaniac, ambitious State-Sponsored Industrial Development Project spanning 1483 km in length across six states in India. It is a joint venture between India and Japan, both having contributed equally to the initial Rs. 1000 crore ($ 182 million) fund. The ‘dream’ is to ramp up the size to $ 100 billion (Rs. 5.5 lakh crore). DMIC is supposed to pass through six states, namely, U.P, NCR of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, with end terminals at Dadri in the National Capital Region of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru Port near Mumbai.

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Tentative dates and plan for the yatra is following :

Maharashtra : March 8 – 10

Suniti S R 9423571784

8 – Mumbai

9 – Raigad / Karla, Dist. Pune

10 – Dhule / Nandurbar

11 – Aurangabad / Sinnar

Gujarat : March 12 – 14

Krishnakant 9427849310

12 – Umargam (Nargol)

13 – Surat
14 – Ahmedabad / Mehsana

Yatra divides in two for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and converges in NCR

Madhya Pradesh : March 15 – 16

Tapan Bhattacharya 9826011413

15 – Ujjain

16 – Pithampur Industrial area Village Kali Billod

Rajasthan : March 15 – 16

Kailash Meena 9928136988

16 – Udaipur

17 – Jaipur

NCR : March 17 – 19

Vimal Bhai 9718479517

17 – Rewari, Haryana

18 – “Kisan-Khetmazdoor Mahapanchayat” @ Jantar Mantar

19 – Convention on “Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor: Myths and Facts” @ Indian Social Institute, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Along with the environmental and material disaster it will have an impact on 14% population of the country, as per official documents. This is being done ignoring the displacement and immense suffering of the people in various projects. What could not be achieved through the Special Economic Zone Act is now being planned through this. The new Bill on land acquisition and resettlement and rehabilitation is being tailor made to this project, and no wonder if this turns out to be the biggest disaster for people in coming years.

Will we let this all happen ?

Projects have already started at many of the places and so have the resistance by people. To bring all these struggles together, to reach out to people on the route, spread out information and to be with them in solidarity we have undertaken this yatra from Mumbai to Delhi, culminating in Delhi on March 23, Shahid Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom day. Join us in this yatra, come and be part of an effort to save precious natural resources for future generations, for a people friendly sustainable development planning and stand in solidarity with people struggling for a dignified living.

Key features of the project

will affect a band of 150km to 200km on both sides of the Dedicated Freight Corridor
incorporates 11 investment regions and 13 industrial areas of about 100 – 250 sq. km each
approximately 180 million people, 14 percent of India’s population will be affected
nine junction stations including Vasai (near Mumbai), Gothangan (near Surat), Makarpura (near Baroda), Amli (near Ahmedabad), Palanpur, Marwar, Phulera, Rewari, Tughlakabad

Big Dreams : The stated goals of this monstrously big dream are to:

double employment potential in five years
triple industrial output in five years
quadruple exports from the region in five years

But what is the reality !

DMIC is just one more link in the long chain of fantasies pursued by the corporate-politician-bureaucrat-technocrat-land shark nexus of vested interests who foist projects to benefit themselves at the cost of the toiling majority of our country. The clique of vested interests masquerades as ‘development magicians’ who will make India shine. Technocrats are fascinated by what is big. In their view all that is ‘mega’ is in the interest of the country. Whimsical ideas are floated first, feasibility examined as an afterthought and justification drummed around like it is divine decree. Internlinking of rivers, SEZs, SIRs, DMIC etc. are part of a long history of mammoth fanciful projects with dubious promises, unfulfilled and unfulfill-able benefits.

And what is wrong with this megalomania ?

Experience shows that investment jamboorees across the country do not deliver. At best only 20 to 30 % of the promised investments come good. The record of new employment generated is even worse. Every new job typically requires a capital of between Rs. 80 lakh to Rs. 1 crore. Whether it is SEZs, SIRs or infrastructure projects they are land scams and routes to avoid taxes.

There is absolutely no mention of the human or environmental impacts of the humongous DMIC project.
The kind of projects pursued currently are massively resource-intensive. There is no thought spared for where water and power will be available from.
Even a small project has to be examined for its feasibility, economic costs and benefits, environmental and social impact assessment. No such exercise is known to have been undertaken.
When something on such a scale is envisioned one cannot look at individual projects, one has to look at the combined impact.
The real cost of ‘development’ is displacement, dispossession, dis-employment and dehumanisation.
Ask the toiling majority of women, farmers, farm labourers, Dalits, Adivasis, fish workers; India is not shining, India is declining. Only the Tatas, Ambanis, Adanis, Mittals, Birlas & Jindals are shining. They will soon be joined by Walmart, Ikea, Carrefour.

Why Mumbai Delhi Sangharsh Yatra?

NAPM believes in citizens right to development planning and a model of development which is self sufficient, labour intensive and emerging from the bottom, rather than the top down monstrous ideas imposed in the name of public interest. Our fight is not against this or that project, we are challenging the development paradigm itself;
DMIC is a monstrosity that must be exposed, it’s undemocratic, bypasses constitutional rights of citizens, gram sabhsa, environmentally destructive and a tool for unprecedented resource grab by corporations;
In the history of struggles for reclaiming our rightful share in development planning and ensuring livelihood to the majority, urgent need to intervene lest i
t circumvents all the legal, political, financial and environmental safeguards in the country;

We believe working classes must reclaim their right for people-centred planning and assert their right to determine the path or paradigm of development. Hence, this yatra to link up, to reach out to farmers, peasants, workers, adivasis, dalits, petty traders and others across the six states that will be swept by the humongous DMIC. NAPM affiliated movements in each of the states have already been working on these issues for sometime now and it is time to link these all up and take the next step forward.

We invite you all to join us in this yatra, wherever you can also support the yatra in various ways. Block dates in you calender, book your train tickets, involve your activist circle, your friends and raise resources for the same.

If you plan to join us from Mumbai till the end then let us know accordingly and plan to reach on March 8^th in Mumbai. We are attaching detail maps of the DMIC project. Information can be seen on http://www.dmic.co.in/

Help us with contacts in these states, write about it, spread the information about it, blog about it, support with resources, come and travel with us.

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