Speaking to the media persons, Pejawar seer said that the representatives of the company attending the meet have failed to produce the relevant documents.
The doubts in the minds of the people about the claims made by the Company could have settled if the officials were able to prove the legitimacy of their project. Unless all the doubts are cleared by verifying the related documents, the company should immediately stop the ongoing construction works at the project site.
Public should be fully satisfied on the doubts about the clearance claims to have been obtained by the company, he said.
Besides, there are also charges against the Lanco Company that the company is indulged in the efforts to sell the lands obtained through Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB). If the charges are true, it is totally illegal, the seer added.
Warning
Lending his support to the protest, the Seer threatened to take up rigorous agitation if the company fails to stop the ongoing project activities until all the documents pertaining to the licenses claimed to be obtained by company was made public for verification.
“We are ready to give time for producing the relevant documents and convince the people as to whether these documents were legal and stands as per the law of the land,” Pejawar seer said.
He also said that the proposal to set up Special Economic Zone in Udupi district should be dropped and no land should be acquired forcibly in the name of SEZ from the locals.
UPCL version
UPCL General Manager Kishore Alva maintained that as the matter is in the court, producing any documents will be matter of subjudice.
The company had secured all clearance and obtained all required licenses to take up the project.
However, he is ready to produce the licenses in the right forum, he said.
Sene interest
Speaking on the occasion, Sri Rama Sene President Pramod Muthalik threatened that if the company failed to stop the project work till they produce the documents demanded by the participants in the meet, Sri Rama Sene will extend its full support in intensifying the agitation against the company.
Muthalik condemned that even after the Samithi invited the company to attend the meeting with all the required documents, the representatives have come bare hands making oral claims, he ridiculed.
Earlier, many speakers including Samithi Executive Committee President Vijayakumar Hegde accused that the Nagarjuna Power Company, which had later sold the project to Lanco Company, had not applied for the license from the local Yellur Gram Panchayat which was mandatory.
The license which the company had obtained, for setting up of captive power plant for its steel plant at Thokur in Dakshina Kannada (now abandoned), was expired during 2002.
However, the company was misusing the expired license for the coal based thermal plant in Udupi district, they said.
Expressing his views Nandikur Jana Jagriti Samithi Honorary President B Balakrishna Shetty said that the company had destroyed 379 acres of forest without permission. The State government has also sold 115 acres of “Devara Kadu” (sacred groves) forest land to Suzlon Company, the only forest existed in the village, he said.
Victim’s distress
The meet witnessed an emotional chaos when Gopi Poojarthy, one of the victims of the coal based Nagarjuna Thermal Power Plant rushed to the dais to fall upon the feets of Pejawar seer pleading justice. She said she lost everything and was forcibly evacuated by the Company on June 5, 2008.
Currently, she resides in a rented house afforded by Nandikur Jana Jagruthi Samithi Honarary President Balakrishna Shetty. She lost her more than 4 acre of fertile land to the atrocities of the company.
Gopi Poojarthy accompanied by her daughter was seen bursting in anger whenever she came across the Company officials.
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