The Hindu

• Compensation package for families that will be evacuated to be decided later 
• Farmers will be paid Rs. 8.5 lakh for an acre of "bhagayathu" land (crop land)
• Rs. 8 lakh will be paid for an acre of "khuskhi" land (dry land)

Mangalore, Jul 14: The Government and the villagers of Bajpe, Permude and Kalavaru near here, have arrived at a consensus on fixing the rate for lands proposed to be acquired by the Government for the Mangalore Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project in these three villages.

At a meeting in the office of the Deputy Commissioner here on Wednesday with the Bajpe, Permude, Kalavaru Santrasthara Samyutka Hitarakshana Samithi, it was agreed that farmers whose land will be acquired for the project will be paid Rs. 8.5 lakh for an acre for "bhagayathu" land (crop land) and Rs. 8 lakh for an acre for "khuskhi" land (dry land), according to samithi sources.

The meeting was attended by Krishna J. Palemar, MLA; Y. Maheshwar Rao, Deputy Commissioner; officials of the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB); Permude Bhujanga Shetty, president of the samithi; its honorary president Chittaranjan Shetty and general secretary Ullas Shetty.

Rehabilitation

The meeting decided to fix the amount of compensation for the families which have to be evacuated and matters related to rehabilitation later.

The Deputy Commissioner told the samithi that a compensation package would be worked out later, sources said.

May meeting inconclusive

Earlier, a meeting convened by the district administration in May to fix the land value was inconclusive as samithi members did not agree with the value quoted by the government.

In that meeting, Government officials had said that the Government could give Rs. 7.5 lakh an acre while the samithi had demanded a minimum of Rs. 12 lakh an acre. Manorama Madhwaraj, MP, who was present at the meeting in May, asked the Government to pay a reasonable amount to families which will lose their land.