Dharwad: Residents of Yadwad staged a demonstration in front of the deputy commissioner’s office in Dharwad on Wednesday in protest against setting up a sugar factory on the Yadwad-Pudakalakatti border in Dharwad taluk.
The villagers who gathered in front of the DC’s office raised slogans such as ‘Save Land’, ‘Save Health’, ‘Jai Jawan’ and ‘Jai Kisan’ opposing the new sugar factory to be established in their locality.
The protesters said Mrinal Sugar Factory is being set up in the village posing threat to the health of residents. They claimed that the factory effluents and carbon would cause drastic affects on the health of the residents in the surroundings of the factory. The smoke may cause lung problems. Moreover, the waste released from the factory may pollute the groundwater. Therefore, the factory which may cast a shadow on the lives of villagers should not be allowed, they said.
They also said that establishment of sugar factory in the village would damage the crops. The fertility of the soil would be affected. Already the people in Belagavi, Davanagere and Bidar districts are suffering due to the problems of sugar factories, they said.
Moreover, farmers grow varieties of vegetables at Yadawada, Kurabagatti, Lokura, Lakamapura, Mulamuttala, Karadigudda, Pudakalakatti, Shibaragatti, Uppinabettageri and Harobelawadi villages. The vegetables grown here are supplied to Dharwad regularly. If a sugar factory is set up, the vegetable cultivation would be stunted. Integrated farming would be affected, they said.
More than 80,000 people are residing in the villages around the factory which is being established now. Setting up of any factory in a residential area is illegal and it should not be allowed under any circumstances. Still if the factory works are continued, the protest would be intensified, they said.
Gram Panchayat President Lakshmi Galagi, Vice-
President Bheemavva Thotannavara and others led the protest.