Even petty theft are met with harsher punishment than these white collar executives who walk away with 2 years sentence and are in fact granted immediate bail. The entire state machinery has let us down. First it was legislators and executive who cheated us by inviting Union carbide without adequate safety laws and letting the perpetrators escape. Then it was judiciary's turn to deal final blow and make mockery of victims by letting the guilty walk away while, hundreds of thousands, waited for over two decades for justice.
Does our government really value Indian lives? The state which gets a fair share of royalty and taxes from the corporations have relieved themselves from their most fundamental responsibility of protecting her citizens. To add insult to injury we have a monstrous nuclear liability bill which seeks to set upper limit on a firm's liability in case of major mishaps. Perhaps nowhere in the world the state seems to have connived with few foreign players against her own citizens.
Well a small bit of digging should reveal very outrageous clauses which are bluntly rude and discriminatory. The bill indirectly lets the manufacturing corporations (read finely it is the Westinghouse, Generic electric, ABB corp.) free from any financial of legal liability in case of mishaps. The only entity which shoulder have limited liability are the operators (read finely it is the state owned NPCIL) to an extent of 500 crores. The state (taxpayers) are left with unlimited liability. Such is the doublespeak that in this case the victims (common people by virtue of being taxpayer) are held accountable for lack of due diligence or simply some ruthless cost cutting measures for profits by these Western manufacturers.
The bill doesn't just stop here. It goes to the extent of disallowing the victims a legal recourse against the manufacturing corporations. The only entity which can hold these corporations accountable are the operators and all they have is period of 10 years to settle all claim after which it lapses. Considering the pace of judiciary world wide this virtually reduces it to a no ops.
What is shocking is the manner in which the clauses were added to the bill as it openly flouts all standard norms and canons. What is even more shocking is the haste manner in which our "Dumb Manmohan Administration" tried to table the bill in parliament. People by now must have serious doubts over saneness of Indian interlocutors who claim to have clinched a win-win deal.
Does this bill gives India any tangible gains.... however remote it may be??
The answer is a big NO.
The fact that US froze all major R&D programme in civilian Nuclear program after 3 mile incident is well known. France which meets over 90% of her energy needs through nuclear plants is way ahead of US in this arena and is willing to help India without these severely limiting bills. Thanks mostly to Bhabha's efforts Indian nuclear establishment, totally indigenous, is perhaps unique in the world as it harnesses abundant and cheap Thorium. Strategists foresee cheap electricity, increased R&D footprint and more jobs on Indian soil, only if the Government is ready to rely on the home grown technology.
What I fear is that we will see offensively priced power produced by three decade US technology being subsidised by Indian taxpayers, who will also have to brace for all mishaps on their own.
We have not forgotten the Dabhol episode, when the government was held ransom by few private players and was asked to subsidise their reckless way of operation. We seem to be incapable of learning from failures. Just two years back three major Indian companies won bid for cheapest cost per unit of electricity for four mammoth power plants. We seem to be incapable of learning from our successes too.
The situation here reminds me of British era of "drain of wealth", when we subsidised British merchandise at the cost of Indian industry. Even today it seems law governing Indians are being drafted by US interlocutors. Colonialism is back in a new garb and we are not complaining, but the Government is taking pride in embracing it.
Manmohan Sir, Sure We do need FDI for development but not at the cost of selling out the entire nation.
