Shri Sudhakar Dalela,
Deputy Secretary, DoC / CPIO
Sir,
Please refer to my previous mails, last of 04.12.05
at:
http://mail.architexturez.net/+/MPISG-Media/archive/msg00709.shtml
and to "Big Box Backlash: The Stealth Campaign at the
World Trade Organisation to Pre-empt Local Control
Over Land Use", released by a Washington based group
on 12.12.05, at:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Zoning_Memo_Final.pdf.
This says on p.6: "While retail operations have been
active in petitioning the WTO for policies that would
handcuff land-use policies on a global basis, their
activities have gone largely unreported by the media
and unrecognised by zoning officials,
environmentalists, academics or other land-use
experts. This briefing paper takes a first step to
alert concerned policy-makers at both the local and
federal level".
This may well be the case in the US. In India recent
developments suggest that "policy-makers" are wise to
and supportive of this design. And "other land-use
experts" (in which residual category I fall) have been
bringing to the attention of DoC issues about
implications of GATS for statutory planning regimes
(in various sectors, not just retail) since long, in
my case since 2003. What we have on hand is not about
pre-empting local control over land use planning (an
objection taken care of by, say, our USAID-sponsored
municipal law to allow unequal area-specific-byelaws
by informal participatory local-area planning by
private firms) but about substituting statutory
planning frameworks that guarantee local control over
land use itself (by equitable spatial allocations
determined / modified through professional planning in
state authorities with mandatory safeguard of equal
and legal opportunity to all to be heard on duly filed
objections or suggestions). This is nothing short of
ruthless annihilation of robust sovereign planning law
and resources (notably public land, and also the
planning profession) created for it over half a
century and, quite frankly, makes the Wal-marts pale
in comparison with, say, the JNNURM!
It is true that in my communications to DoC I have not
cited GATS clauses, Wal-mart type exposes, etc, and
done no more than my best to relate plannerly concerns
to the GATS offer and consonant initiatives. I posit
now that had DoC made available mandatory information
under s.4 of RTI Act by mid-October (or extended to me
the courtesy of a response to my prior
communications), I would have been able to make, with
or without subsequent resort to my RTI under s.6,
specific suggestions for leaving statutory planning
regimes out of our GATS offers for various sectors
(without unduly hampering our trade objectives).
I request now that all my prior communications be
reviewed and I be told:
* (in view of the transparency objective of RTI Act,
2005) how you consider adequate the DoC publication
under s.4 / justified the denial of my requests in
ambit of s.4 in respect of information relating to our
GATS offer
* (in view of the accountability objective of RTI Act,
2005) if and how the purpose of my communications,
viz, to safeguard the sanctity of sovereign planning
law, is being addressed in the negotiations underway
in Hong Kong.
If you perceive your RTI responsibilities as being
limited to s.6 procedures, kindly forward this mail to
whosoever is responsible for s.4 information to enable
your s.6 responsibilities and my s.6 rights in
accordance with the object of RTI Act.
Yours sincerely
Gita Dewan Verma, Planner
cc: as in ml under reference
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