Minister revels in ignorance

how many copies does your paper sell? asked state housing minister gautam deb. even bengali papers, who have a huge circulation, have got tired of writing against the rajarhat township. they have been able to do nothing and have given up at last, deb said with a victorious smile. for him, the proper place for all newspaper reports is the dustbin. the housing minister boldly declared that he had no idea about the total area on which the rs 15,000-crore housing project was coming up.even senior officials of hidco, such as general manager (administration) ashok bhattacharjee and special officer b. chakraborty, did not have the figures ready with them. yet, it is this issue, which has been dogging the rajarhat project for years. in the draft project report, prepared by hidco in september 1995, the project area was shown to be 622 hectares. in april 1999, it was stated to be 3,075 hectares. however, in a written statement to the green bench of the calcutta high court, hidco reaffirmed that the housing project would cover 622 hectares. strangely, in its publication, hidco said the area would be 640 hectares. the rajarhat township project has more anomalies than one. there have been complaints that several water bodies were filled up for the project. as many as 33 ponds had been filled up, alleged nilotpal dutta, secretary, rajarhat jami bachao committee. a letter (2785-fish/b-111/2m-35/99 of 19/11/99), in possession of tnn, shows that hidco had sought permission of the state fisheries department to fill up a few water bodies, including canals. critics of the project also point out that its foundation stone had been laid even before it obtained the environment impact assessment clearance, mandatory for such schemes. while work started in 1997, it was not before april 1999 that the eia clearance was obtained from m/s ghosh and bose associates. environmentalist subhas dutta, who raised his voice against all this, is now a dejected man. so are the members of rajarhat jami bachao committee, who have no more money to fight the case in court.