If one had doubts about the West Bengal government’s astounding mutability, its stance on the East Calcutta wetlands would put them to rest. Some time ago, the ruling party’s state secretary, Mr Biman Bose, seemed to have taken up the cudgels against the city’s land sharks, particularly those who threaten the Ramsar site. The state’s land reforms minister, Mr Abdur Rezzak Molla, had also been making arrangements to demolish two projects which encroached on the wetlands. The government seems to have changed its mind overnight. There is now earnest talk about ways to regularize illegal construction in the area by amending the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955. Perhaps nothing has changed at all. The government remains as oblivious to the dangers of destroying the wetlands as before. Had there been genuine concern, the government would not have left obvious loopholes in the East Calcutta wetlands (management and conservation) bill, passed earlier this year. The authorities would have been less ‘vague’ about the East Calcutta wetlands management plan. And there would be a stop to the planning of roads and bypasses that would, quite inevitably, throttle the region’s vulnerable eco-system in the name of progress.

Unfortunately, the government’s intentions appear less noble. The indiscretions of the wetlands- encroachers are supposed to be waived in exchange for a tidy sum, and by asking them to create another water body for the one filled up. To Mr Molla, as to Mr Bose, the replacement of water bodies seems an exciting option. In fact, the wetlands conservation bill itself provides for such substitution. It also allows exceptions to be made in the greater interests of urbanization and infrastructure. The ways in which a myopic development lobby can promote such interests are manifold and dangerous. There have already been innumerable violations of the Ramsar convention. None of these has been punished. The government’s present effort to push through measures to grant de facto approval to illegal land conversions will be like waving the red rag to a bull. It cannot afford to be so irresponsible. There is much sense in pressing for a white paper on the wetlands. This will make the subject less vulnerable to the whims of individual ministers and government departments. There is also need for a fuller civic awareness about the abyss that the greed of a few is pushing the city and its people into.