The Hindu

• Police are not ready to register our complaints: families
• Cases pending before Supreme Court and High Court

Udupi, May 22: The representatives of five families who have been issued notices by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) to vacate their lands at the project site of the 1,015 MW coal-based thermal power project at Yellur village in Udupi district by May 21, 2008, urged Deputy Commissioner P. Hemalatha to stop the KIADB from proceeding further.

The representatives of the families — Odi Moggera, Somaiyya Moolya, Deju Shetty, Gopi Poojarthy and Kamalakshi Amma — were led by the president of the executive committee of Nagarjuna Virodhi Horata Samiti Vijaykumar Hegde.

Notice

They said that the KIADB had served notices (dated May 17, 2008) to them stating that they should remove their belongings from their homes and that their buildings would be demolished on May 21.

They said that the houses were in the midst of fertile agricultural land, which provided them a livelihood, and that they had children and aged members to look after. They had challenged the land acquisition before the Supreme Court and the High Court, which were pending.

The courts were on now on a vacation and the KIADB was taking advantage of this and was pressing them to vacate. They alleged that the goons hired by the Udupi Power Corporation (formerly Nagarjuna Power Corporation), were harassing them regularly.

The local police were not ready to register their complaint, they said.

Ms. Hemalatha told the petitioners that she would visit the spot in 10 days and take “legally permissible action”.

Mr. Vijaykumar Hegde also released letters written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Governor Rameshwar Thakur by Balakrishna Shetty, president of Nandikur Janajagriti Samiti, on May 20, 2008, to presspersons. Both the Janajagriti Samiti and the Nagarajuna Virodhi Horata Samithi are fighting against the project on the grounds that it would create environmental and other problems.

In these letters, the Janajagriti Samiti, besides mentioning the KIADB’s notices, also stated “the Deputy Commissioner of Udupi has also issued instruction (on February 7, 2008) to cut the trees and standing crop on the land of Kamalakshi Amma, who is also one of the petitioners in the Special Leave Petition although no survey has been conducted.

We [the Samithi] therefore request you [Mr. Rameshwar Thakur] to issue urged direction to the KIADB and the Deputy Commissioner to refrain from taking any action to demolish the buildings in the lands or cut the trees or dispossess the landowners whose cases are pending in the High Court and Supreme Court.”

DC’s reaction

Later speaking to presspersons, Ms. Hemalatha said that she would enquire into the entire issue.

“We will also enquire whether the police are not registering the petitioners’ complaints. I will look into all the documents and take legally permissible action,” she said.