GANJIMATH (DAKSHINA KANNADA): People of Badagulipadi and Mogaru villages under Ganjimath Gram Panchayat limits have opposed the State Government's move to acquire 154.42 acres of private land for the second phase of the proposed Export Promotion Industrial Park (EPIP).

In the first phase the Government acquired 219 acres from villagers in the vicinity of Ganjimath. This land has been allotted to different companies, most of the information technology related. The gram panchayat members, who met recently, passed a unanimous resolution against the Government's move.

People of these two villages staged a demonstration in front of the gram panchayat office . Janaki, president of the gram panchayat, said the Government had kept the panchayat in the dark about the move to acquire additional land. It had issued a notification for the acquisition of additional land.

Abdul Majid, former president of the panchayat, said the Government proposed to shift over 95 families from the two villages to acquire the land. In the area proposed for the second phase of acquisition there is a cashew factory, rubber factory, mosaic manufacturing factory and an electricity pole-manufacturing factory.

There are cashew, coconut, rubber and areca plantations, apart from a manjium plantation and a dairy farm. These factories provide employment to local peopleHe said the only source of drinking water for these villages was groundwater.

But the Government had drilled 15 borewells in the land acquired to provide water for companies to set up their units.

The borewells, he alleged, had been drilled within 500 metres of one another, which was not permissible as per the rules. The borewells would deplete groundwater in the area.

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