The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Coastal Corridor not to run over mangrove forest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 13, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Coastal Corridor not to run over mangrove forest

Ramesh Susarla

Minister reassures land-owners

Requirement put at 5,000-hectares of forest land
Officials seek people’s consent for land transfer

GUNTUR: The Coastal Corridor project proposed to be executed by the Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Investment Authority of the United Arab Emirates and Matrix Enport Pvt. Ltd. is yet to submit its final project report, but the State government is going ahead with acquisition of land for the project.

The final project report earmarks the exact extent of land to be acquired and location including survey numbers that it proposes to use. Conservator of Forests Anup Singh told The Hindu that as of now the Forest Department had not received any requisition from any government department -- revenue, industrial infrastructure development or the promoters of the project.

So, it is not known exactly how much Reserve Forest land would be taken by the project.

As per a rough estimate, the requirement was put at more than 5,000 hectares of the RF land in both Guntur and Prakasam districts.

While five Reserve Forest blocks fall in the proposed project area in Prakasam, 10 RFs are in Guntur district.

The only solace for the Forest Department is that majority of the mangrove forest in and around Nizampatnam port would not be touched in the proposed project, he said.

Acquisition begins

Meanwhile, land acquisition had begun in both districts with Revenue Department officials going from village to village asking people to give their consent so that compensation was fixed.

The Minister for Ports and Infrastructure Mopidevi Venkata Ramana said that maximum possible compensation would be paid to land owners.

Five RF Blocks around the Vadarevu port comprises 932 hectare of forest land, which according to the forester was either degraded or planted social forest with no real thick green cover.

The dominant species in these 5 RFs -- Motupalli, Kadavakuduru, Polaripalem, Naganipalli, and Perlavanipalem were pongamia, casuarina and eucalyptus.

“These trees are permitted to be cut for commercial value of the wood in normal course,” he added. For the Costal Corridor project land required around this port was falling under 10 RF Blocks, the extent ranges from 12 hectares to 2,000 hectares.

Some of the blocks may be left out totally once the contours were finalised by the promoters.

These 10 RF Block have 5,800 hectares of degraded forest.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh