A PUBLIC hearing on the Mandal Becharaji Special Investment Region (MBSIR), held at a village in Mehsana district, was postponed after a section of farmers and NGOs protested against the manner in which it was organised. “The meeting has been postponed because some of the farmers and a couple of non-governmental organisations had objections against the hearing," said Resident Additional Collector P B Rathod, who was present at Chandanki village of Becharaji taluka of the district in place of Collector HK Patel, who is on leave. Other officials of MBSIR and the Gujarat Pollution Control Board were also present. “The farmers were of the opinion that the notices served to them (to remain present) were issued very late, and some of them did not receive the notices at all. So to avoid any confusion, we decided to postpone the hearing,” he told The Indian Express. Bhupat Solanki, one of the villagers, claimed the public hearing was being held in violation of the rules. "As per the rules, the hearing should take place in every district. However, the administration has clubbed the hearing of villages which fall under Mehsana, Patan and Surendranagar districts," said Solanki. "Secondly, the notices were not received in time and proper announcements were not made through media channels. Moreover, there are certain villages which do not want to be a part of MBSIR. Chandanki and the villages surrounding it want to be part of the SIR, but we do not. There was a big fight in 2013 regarding the same," added Solanki, who hails from Ervada village of Surendranagar district, which has been included in the industrial cluster comprising of companies such as Suzuki Motor Corporation and Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India Ltd (HMSI) and a proposed project by the JSW group to produce electric vehicles. After farmers protested in 2013, the Gujarat government denotified 36 of 44 villages which fell under MBSIR, following their objection to a notification for the acquisition of 50,884 hectares in the 44 villages. Solanki said that the complete Environment Impact Assessment Report was not made available before the meeting, and that only an executive summary was shared among some villagers. Despite holding a meeting of farmers of several villages, they had made arrangements for only 200 people at the venue.
