By CT reporter
MANGALORE : With foundation for the Rs 1000 crore Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd ‘s crude oil storage project laid recently at Kalavarpadavu, questions are being raised with regard to the safety of this gigantic project. The 1.5 MMT capacity project will be implemented in an 83 acre area in Kalavar Padavu in Bala gram panchayat limits. The crude oil reserves would be stored in underground rock caverns and the project is likely to be completed in the year 2012.
At a time when the Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd has still failed to contain the oil leakage that has been going on for the past ten years, the villagers are apprehensive of the possibility of underground water resources getting contaminated with oil following the implementation of the ISPRL project. Environmentalists too are of the strong view that such projects were not suitable for the environmentally sensitive district like Dakshina Kannada
Villagers of Bala have further alleged that there had been widespread irregularities in the process of acquisition of land for the implementation of the project. According to the villagers, the SEZ officials had even violated the Protocol during the foundation laying ceremony for the project.
The villagers say that initially the fertile agriculture lands at Kalavar where farmers grew as many as three crops were acquired by the KIADB for the first phase of the MSEZ project by paying Rs 8.50 lakh per acre of agricultural land and Rs 8 lakh for hilly land. But within a month after acquisition, the villages say, the officials revealed their true colour by selling the same land to the ISPRL company at Rs 50 lakh per acre thereby reaping a total profit of Rs 41.31 crore. It is learnt, when the SEZ Executive Officer IM Prasad was contacted in this regard he had said that “ This was just the advance amount and the balance was yet to be paid by the ISPRL.†According to one estimate, the land acquired by the KIADB for the SEZ at Rs 8.5 lakh per acre might have been sold for several crores of rupees per acre.
As both the MSEZ and ISPRL projects are government promoted projects, the government machinery was adequately used for the recent foundation laying ceremony of the ISPRL project. At the same time, it was precarious to note that the authorities had totally forgotten the protocol while holding the ceremony.
According to Bala gram panchayat vice president Gregory Patro, the authorities had not even been courteous enough to intimate the panchayat regarding the function being held in the gram panchayat limits. He says the authorities thus have proved that any land acquired for such project would be considered a foreign land. He also alleged that the district minister, legislators and ZP and TP members were kept in the dark regarding the function.
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