'Mangalore is God's Own Place as far as SEZ Concerned'
Pics by Dayananda Kukkaje
Mangalore, Aug 26: N Vinaya Hegde, Chairman of Nitte Education Trust today inaugurated the Mangalore SEZ website www.mangaloresez.com and said “Mangalore is gods own place as far as SEZ is concerned. Mangalore has no future unless Mangaloreans are going to become SEZ-friendly”.
SEZ will give an impetus to the economic activity of this region and would also create tremendous job opportunities. At present every child of our district is going to the Middle East or Mumbai or Bangalore in search of greener pastures on completing education. But once SEZ takes off and if it becomes local-friendly it will provide an opportunity for our children to stay back here to take care of their parents without sacrificing their careers, he pointed out.
He added that though we all value our land the sacrifice of one person for the overall development of the region is the need of the hour or else the status quo will continue and Mangalore will remain stagnant as far as development is concerned. He, however, called upon the officials of Mangalore SEZ to assure the displaced people that rehabilitation and resettlement is done on a time bound basis without delay so as to mitigate their suffering. “A large number of local people should be included to provide long term training because blue-collar workers in Dakshina Kannada are now having difficulty in getting jobs due to lack of training”, Mr Hegde added.
He further said that the enlightened and intelligent people of Dakshina Kannada should understand the concept of SEZ. We are talking about growth in China, Singapore and Middle East which is happening largely because of SEZs. If we are not exposing ourselves for the changes, our country will not change.
He called upon the local people to make their own decisions and termed it as unfortunate attempts by some people with vested interests to make issues out of nothing. The displaced people should get a fair price for their lands and this fair price is the price that prevailed before the SEZ project came up. SEZ is a god given gift to the people of this district, he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada M Maheshwara Rao, who presided over the function, said that the Mangalore SEZ website would go a long way in dispelling all half truths that are in circulation and would give a correct picture to the people about details pertaining to Mangalore SEZ.
I S N Prasad, Managing Director and CEO of Mangalore SEZ, talked about the importance of Mangalore SEZ and the impetus it would provide for the economic activity in this region. Mangalore, being a maritime port is the ideal place for setting up a SEZ, he stated.
He also gave a brief account of the contents of the website including why Mangalore is specifically chosen for setting up the special economic zone. He assured that the company will take every possible step to keep the emissions at much lower level than what is prescribed by the various environment agencies.
The website, he said, will be updated regularly to accommodate information as and when it occurs. General information on the website is available for the public in English and Kannada languages.
A G Pai, Executive Director of Mangalore SEZ welcomed the gathering.