Urgent appeal from Uttarakhand

Dear Friends,Please find attached a follow-up petition to the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) regarding rejecting the proposal to award Forest Clearance to the 261 MW, NTPC Rupsiyabagad, Khasiyabada Project on the Gori Ganga river. This petition follows an earlier submission to the FAC sub-committee when they visited the NTPC office and the power house site.

Also attached are a Circular regarding Forest Rights in the context for forest clearance and some photos  of a part of the road that is illegal.We request, you to read the petition and indicate if you would like to be one of the signatories. We would like to send it by 21st evening. We have tried to see when the next FAC meeting is proposed but it seems that there are none in May 2012.

Kindly also let us know if there would be other people / groups who we could include as signatories. Kindly let us know by 21st evening, so that we send the petition to the FAC. Two villages and another civil society group are also going to be sending petitions regarding the FAC clearance.

In case any more background is required please let us know.

• Maati Sangathan