Citizens’ Research Collective on SEZ

Mangalore, November 18, 2007: The agitation against the proposed Mangalore Special Economic Zone which had developed into a farmers’ movement over the last few months, is set to change radically with granite quarry owners, workers and contractors joining it.

About four hundred workers and contractors of granite quarry have joined forces with Krishi Bhoomi Samrakshana Samiti (KBSS), an organisation led by Madhukar Amin, that has been representing agitating farmers in the region. The newcomers are being led by R. Kannan and Robert Menezez, both granite quarry owners in Thenka Yekkaru village.

The owners and occupants of 2,035 acres in Bala, Thokkur, Kalavaru, Bajpe, Permude, Thenka Yekkaru, Delanthabettu, and Kuthethur on the outskirts of Mangalore, have been notified for the MSEZ. The quarry workers and contractors belong to Thenka Yekkaru village and are employed in six granite quarries operating on five acres. According to Sudeep Amin, president of Thenka Yekkaru gram panchayat, about 120 workers from various parts of South India, have voters’ identity cards and many of them have been residing in the area for nearly two decades. Workers stand to lose more than livelihood.

Nagibai (31) from Davangere district has been working in the quarries at Thenka Yekkaru for 14 years now. She has two children, studying in a Government school — one is in sixth standard and the other in ninth. “After a lot of troubles, we have settled here. My contractor is very kind. My children are good at studies and the teachers are helpful. Why should our lives get disrupted all over again? I am not going to leave,” she says. A senior resettlement and rehabilitation officer with MSEZ Limited confesses that people will be given jobs. He said there was no 100 percent guarantee of jobs for every displaced person.

A.G. Pai, chief operating officer, MSEZ Limited, while confirming that there was no compensation package for people like Rajkumar, said: “These contractors can find work elsewhere”.However, the dissent is yet to percolate to the last worker in the quarries. Prakash (36) from Davangere, has been working in the quarry for the last 16 years. He is clueless about the SEZ and the ongoing agitation against it. He is unaware of the notification.

Source: The Hindu