The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Shelve Coastal Corridor project, says panel

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Monday, Dec 29, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Shelve Coastal Corridor project, says panel

Staff Reporter

It demands scrapping of Special Economic Zones Act

Government accused of declaring 3,500 acres as Award lands
‘Government departments resorted to violation of SHRC rules’

Kakinada: A fact finding team of the Struggle Committee against Coastal Corridor and Kakinada Special Economic Zone (KSEZ) has claimed that lands belonging to farmers were snatched by the government for promoting real estate businesses in the name of development of KSEZ.

Members of the committee, who visited the affected villages in the last couple of days, alleged that the KSEZ was originally planned to be set up in Kakinada rural mandal but it was shifted to the agriculturally rich U.Kotthapalli and Tondangi mandals due to resistance from real estate businessmen and politicians.

In the process fertile lands were grabbed from the farmers most of whom were reluctant to part with their holdings. The government was also accused of declaring about 3,500 acres as Award lands without the consent of farmers.

The committee has stated in a press release that the government departments concerned and KSEZ resorted to blatant violation of the strictures passed by the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC).

Highly objectionable was the forceful eviction of farmers from their lands using the police force who were time and again deployed against the interim injunctions passed by SHRC.

Comprising D.V. Krishna CPI (ML) New Democracy, D Haranath CPI (ML) Liberation, G.V. Raghavulu CPI (ML), M. Nagaiah CPI (ML) Chandra Pulla Reddy, M. Chandra Rao (MCPI) and K. Veeranjaneyulu CPI (ML) Janasakti, the committee demanded that the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 should be scrapped and the coastal industrial corridor project to be shelved in the interest of the farming and fishing communities.

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