KIADB acquires land for MRPL without notice in Bala village

KIADB acquires land for MRPL without notice in Bala village

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, April 29:  The Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) acquired 14 acres of land for the expansion of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) on Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

An 80 year old Mary Patrao, mother of Gregory Patrao, initially wept and later cursed the officials for evicting them and bulldozing their fertile land and arecanut plantations. The authorities, who came there to demolish the house, have thrown out the food, which she prepared in the morning. She cursed them and said I am hungry…. Please give me food...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed with a High Court order and assisted by the police, the officials went to the land in Bala village that belonged to the former vice-president of the Bala Gram Panchayat Gregory Patrao.

Source said that the land was earlier earmarked for MSEZ, it was latr handed over to MRPL III in which a separate section of the refinery is coming up.

When 50-odd people with an equal number of police force arrived at the spot on Wednesday morning, the member of the family of Patrao pleaded with cops and officials concerned to give them at least one day to shift their belongings which included about 175 bags of areca nut, 20bags of rice and other household articles. Besides there were seven cows two buffaloes two oxen and over 50 chicken and four dogs in the cattle shed. 

Mr. Patrao, who had been fighting a legal battle against the acquisition of his land for close to 20 years, lost the ownership of the land after the High Court dismissed his petition against the KIADB and the State Government on March 19. 

Mangalore tahsildar C.N. Manjunath told The Hindu that compensation of Rs. 1.54 crore had been deposited by the KIADB in the name of the land-losers at the Mangalore Civil Court. “We are doing nothing that is against the law. They are just trying to postpone the inevitable,” he said. Concurring with the tahsildar, B.M. Prakash Mr. Patrao’s lawyer said, “Legally speaking they have every right to acquire the land.”

However, Vidya Dinker of the Citizens’ Forum said that Mr. Patrao’s family was not given adequate time to pack their belongings and that no alternative residential arrangement was made for them as per rehabilitation norms. Refuting this, Mr. Manjunath said that temporary accommodation had been provided to the family.
DHNS / Thehindu