JOIN USGas pipeline projects worry villagers
However, the two projects together will lay the pipeline for the transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through nearly 50 villages in the district, leaving the villagers ponder over the certainty of their future. The alarming fact is that the pipelines of both companies will converge at Thokoor in Mangalore!
As of now, as many as 385 land owners have been served individual notices in Kariangala village by RIL while 35 land owners in Ammunje have received notices from Gas Authority of India Limited to acquire the land with Right of User (RoU) under the Petroleum and Minerals Pipeline Act.
While GAIL had given seven days time to the villagers to register their objection, RIL had given 21 days time period. Villagers all together have filed one objection with signatures of 35 land owners in the objection for GAIL within the stipulated time but the 385 land owners notified by RIL are yet to decide about their plan of action because they still have some time left in their hands.
The notices served by the competent authorities K Mallinath (RIL) and H M Nagappa (GAIL) do not make mention of the project details but only mandates filing of objections, if any within, the mentioned time frame.
The residents are petrified because they feel the companies are clandestinely going ahead with the project deceiving the innocent villagers. “Couple of years ago we remember some groups had come to the village and surveyed the land. They remained tight-lipped even when we questioned them. When this was fading out of our memory, we have received the notices,” says a villager adding that GAIL being a public sector unit has some official communication channel but RIL is more discreet.
RIL, according to the plan will lay LNG pipeline of 13.3 MMSCMD (million metric standard cubic meter per day) capacity from Thiruthani terminal point in Tamilnadu to Mangalore via Bangalore as it has received authorization from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. GAIL had obtained the permission to lay pipeline of 16 MMSCMD capacity from Kochi in Kerala to Mangalore.
It is learnt that RIL has plans to acquire 100 feet wide land on RoU basis in villages of Bantwal, Belthangady and Mangalore taluks, GAIL would acquire 66 feet wide land in villages of Belthangady and Mangalore taluks. The pipeline of RIL will pass through 33 villages in the district.
Sundar Shetty from Ammunje, a farmer, says that he has learnt that the pipeline will be laid about one and half mts beneath.
“They have told us that they will acquire the land and once the project is over, the land will be handed back to us. We can use it as per our wish but we cannot put up any permanent structure,” he said.
“Off late, we have learnt that we cannot plough the land and plant coconut and areca, which are the mainstay of the region. We will be forced to evolve a new method of cultivation in this kind of land, which is torn into two pieces,” he says.
Kariangala Grama Panchayat Development Officer Navin says that he is worried over the safety aspect because one cannot imagine the extent of damage a mishap can cause.
He informed that the companies have not approached the GP so far.
Citizens’ Forum for Mangalore Development Co-ordinator Vidya Dinker opined, “Such projects, which will impact the lives and livelihood of so many people, needs to first conduct the mandatory Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and Socio-Economic Impact Assessment study and also consult the local governing bodies before embarking on the venture”.
Further, she pointed that necessary clearances under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act 1974 and Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act 1981 and Forest clearance should also be obtained.
With none of the elected representatives of the region taking up the issue as of now, the villagers are wondering which way to go.