The livelihood and living conditions of crores of fishworkers and residents of coastal areas of the country are facing grave danger with the government's new Coastal Management Zone (CMZ) notification, which can go into effect any time after June 30.

The CMZ notification replaces the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification of 1991. The CRZ notification had laid down certain rules and guidelines to control construction and economic activity in the coastal areas.  It is well known that the earlier CRZ notification had been repeatedly amended and violated with impunity in the interests of big business. It was hence not very effective in preserving the ecology of the coastal regions or the livelihood of traditional fishworkers.  Now the government is pointing to this ineffectiveness to justify bringing in new measures that will completely do away with protection of these areas and their residents!

Under the pretext of looking into the effects of the tsunami of 2004 and into how such damage can be prevented in the future, the government first prepared the conditions to revamp the laws and regulations pertaining to the coastal regions. 

The reasons behind this move of the government are directly related to the greed of big business for more profits.  With its more than 8000 Km long coastline, India is very rich in coastal resources. Big business interests in the fields of large-scale fishing and mariculture, shipping, tourism and leisure industry, mining, real estate development and so on, are eagerly eyeing these areas and resources for exploitation. 

The current regulations, however weakly implemented, are an obstacle to their plans. This includes the regulation that forbids taking over of land 500 metres from the shoreline. The new CMZ notification replaces the 500 metre regulation with a complicated and vaguely defined scheme that will vary from place to place.  The fishing community and other affected people will find it virtually impossible to defend their interests with such a scheme in place.

Environmental norms to protect the fragile ecology of coastal areas are also being relaxed under the new scheme.  Already, the local people have suffered greatly from the loss of mangroves, the discharge of industrial effluents into the sea, and other effects of unchecked exploitation. These will now increase manifold.

Among other things, “greenfield airports” in coastal areas, and the establishment of huge coastal SEZs, like the Mundra SEZ in Kutch, are being envisaged. 

The government's method of pushing through the CMZ notification is revealing. 

First the government fails to enforce the existing regulations and lets those who want to violate them do so with impunity. Then it comes up with a new set of regulations that regularizes all the violations and removes all restrictions in the interests of big business. This is a familiar route that the government has been adopting with respect to land and other natural resources. Legislation or notification that existed on paper, to "regulate" the use of these resources, is more violated than observed. While various governmental authorities have been doing everything in their power to abet such violations in the interests of the big capitalists, new regulation is introduced on the plea that the existing regulation is not workable. In every case, the proposed new regulation legitimises the violations. Instead of improving the enforcement of existing legislation, or punishing those guilty of violations, they only serve to enable the violators to now blatantly carry on their loot and plunder of land and other natural resources.

Adding insult to injury, the government pretends that it is "the people" whose voice it is heeding. It posts the new regulations on the internet in English and asks for “comments and suggestions” within a deadline of a few weeks. Demands to scrap the new scheme or to redraft it in consultation with the most affected parties such as the fishworkers' organisations and coastal residents are ignored. After this so-called “democratic” exercise, the new regulations – in this case, an executive order and not even a law – will be notified anyway!  The people are expected to just accept it as a fait accompli. 

Fishworkers, environmental activists and residents of coastal areas are up in arms against this nefarious move of the government. June 20 was observed as a National Day of Action in protests and rallies in various parts of the country.  The fishworkers' organisations have also declared that they will descend on Delhi in thousands on July 22, the opening day of the monsoon session of Parliament, if the CMZ notification is not withdrawn.  People's Voice wholeheartedly supports their struggle, and demands that the CMZ notification be scrapped and that under no circumstances should measures be taken that threaten the ecology of the coastal areas and the livelihood of their residents.