Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Dec 19: President of Rajya Raita Sangha and Hasiru Sene, Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, blamed Udupi Power Corporation Ltd’s (UPCL) thermal plant at Nandikoor near Padubidri as a project that has interfered with the peaceful lives of the local populace. Blaming ministers for extending support to such a harmful project for their own benefits, he said that on December 26, all the offices and business establishments of Padubidri town in the district will observe bandh as a mark of protest against UPCL.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday December 18, he blamed the politicians, who had branded UPCL as anti-people and fought against it when not in power, of having now changed their colours after rising to power, and started supporting the company. He charged the government of cutting down four lac trees in Western Ghats to lay power line of the company. “Is the state government alive? Who permitted this destruction?” he questioned. He said all the politicians and political parties have been known to change their policies to suit their own ends, and no party can be trusted to work for the welfare of the people, going by the past experience.

Raita Sangha district unit president, Vijay Hegde, said that the villages around UPCL have become pale because of the existence of UPCL. He said that shops and establishments within the jurisdiction of ten gram panchayats in and around Padubidri as also Padubidri town will not be functional on December 26 to register their united opposition to UPCL.

Leaders, Prashant Shetty Inna, and Shashidhar Shetty Ellur were present at the press conference.