By Express News Service

CHENNAI: It can’t get more hilarious than this. Certain portions of the feasibility report on the proposed eight-lane Chennai-Salem greenfield highway project talk about enhancing public transit system in a China town!

In an apparent case of plagiarism, the consultant Feedback Infra Pvt Ltd has made a mockery of social impact assessment by allegedly cutting and pasting the contents of a Chinese road project report.

Read section 11.7 of Chapter 11 titled ‘Gender and Development’ in the Chennai-Salem highway project report; it contains only plagiarised content.

In response to the first question what are the key gender issues in the sector/subsector, which are likely to be relevant to this project, the report says,”The project will enhance the urban road network and public transit system which will benefit women and men equally. The mobility of women in Xi’an is already very high and the project will enhance the quality and frequency of transportation services in a safer manner.”

(Xi’an is a city in Shaanxi province of China).

Feedback Infra Pvt Ltd has not responded to calls or emails sent by Express. Project Director PT Mohan of the National Highway Authority of India was also not available for comments. Environmental activist Nityanand Jayaraman said this was appalling and showed how seriously they took the social impact assessment. The Union Environment Ministry has issued terms of reference (ToR) to the NHAI for conducting the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), based on this fudged document.

Not only this, Jayaraman said the consulting firm had claimed to have completed the public consultation.

The firm has claimed, “The consultations were carried out with both individuals and groups during the screening survey involving local people, health workers and administrators. During the consultation, the issues regarding HIV/AIDS have been discussed with truck drivers and local people such as awareness about disease, medium of propagation, information, preventive measures, use of contraceptives. The presence of infected persons, line of treatment, precautions and presence of commercial sex workers in the area have been discussed at the consultation.”

Jayaraman asked what HIV/AIDS has to do with the concerns of farmers who stand to lose their land on account of this greenfield corridor project. The project feasibility report has also proposed to allocate `20 lakh for HIV/AIDS awareness. Moreover, there are several pages that have been duplicated just to increase the volume of the report. On page 271, under identification of issues, the report says, “Many people (are) worried, whether the work will be taken up due to political conflicts. The construction work should be taken up on urgent basis, rather than conducting survey again and again.” This, activists claim, is undermining the concept of public consultation while preparing the feasibility report.

Set up expert committee, says Stalin

Chennai: Expressing concern over the environmental impact of the proposed Salem-Chennai access-controlled eight-lane highway and the crackdown on protesters, DMK working president MK Stalin on Friday demanded setting up of an expert committee to explore the options to realign the facility.

“An expert committee should be formed to prepare a project to realign the Salem-Chennai green corridor or to evolve a plan to widen one of the existing roads”, he said in a release. He warned that if the government is bent upon implementing the project by troubling the people and taking away their farmlands, the DMK will hold peaceful protests in all the districts concerned.