DEFIANT: R. Chellappan (right), an aged farmer from Kirapakkam village off the Kelambakkam -Vandalur road, is among several villagers who are anxious over the Government proposal to build a satellite town. — PHOTO: A. MURALITHARAN

CHENNAI : Residents of villages south of Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road, which the State Government has reportedly identified for a proposed satellite town, have opposed any kind of takeover of their lands.

They say it will not be possible to part with even dry and wastelands as they served as a `security buffer' when crops in the wetlands fail. There was simmering anger in some of the villages on Friday, a day after the Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi made the official announcement in the Legislative Assembly through a suo motu statement. Village youth associations in some villages, affiliated to Nehru Yuva Kendra, are already talking about boycotting the upcoming local body elections in October in protest.

The government is yet to officially say where the 30,000-acre land for the project has been identified.

However, several villagers had photocopies of a letter reportedly written by the Member Secretary of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority that lists 44 villages in Chengalpattu Taluk where the government has reportedly decided to acquire dry and wastelands. They say PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi) volunteers had distributed the copies during a public meeting on Thursday evening.

Shock and disbelief

Villagers of Arungai, Kirapakkam and Murugamangalam, three villages from the list of 44, says revenue officials had been measuring their lands over the past three weeks but had no clue why they were doing it.

N. Balaji, who owns a five acres of wetland in Kirapakkam where he grows paddy, says the official inspection was wrongly timed.

"If the officials had come here during the rains, they would have seen nothing but green crops. They have misjudged these areas as being non-agricultural."

Though the government has said it would acquire the land at market price, several villagers are worried. "Each cent of land here sells for Rs.30,000. Will the government offer us as much?" a woman in Murugamangalam asks.

R. Chellapan, a 60-year-old villager who owns two acres in Kirapakkam, says the government should have found out whether the villagers were will ing to give up their lands.

"We voted them to power. But they did not even have the courtesy to tell us what they were planning." The villagers oppose the proposal for various reasons: rich farmers, who have sons or daughters studying in colleges, fear that the government would grossly undervalue their land; for the middle-income farmers, the attachment to their land is far more than others.

They say they do not want to sell their ancestral property; and for the low-income farmers, who have no other skills but farming, the proposal comes as a body blow. B. Vimala, a women's self-help group member from Arungal village, says the Government proposal to take over only dry and wastelands did not make sense. "The dry and wastelands act as a security buffer when crops fail. Also, paddy cultivation does not really yield high returns.

Some farmers grow teak or coconut trees in dry lands and use the money to make up for low or medium returns from wetlands."

Though the PMK has pledged to support their cause at the public meeting on Thursday, some villagers are still not sure whether the party was on their side. A. Dhanasekar of Grama Podhunala Illaignar Narpani Mandram (Village Welfare Youth's Association) from Murugamangalam, said the PMK volunteers were aware of the unrest in the areas over the past few weeks and had even announced the public meeting at Oorapakkam on Wednesday.

"That can only mean they were aware that the government was going ahead with the proposal. So why did not they protest at the Assembly?" he asks.

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