Land acquisition on for port-based SEZ

Our Bureau

Kakinada, Dec. 15

The East Godavari district administration is going ahead with land
acquisition for the proposed port-based special economic zone, even
though there is uncertainty over the setting up of a refinery by the
ONGC - the main project in the SEZ.

Mr M. Subrahmanyam, District Collector, told presspersons here on
Thursday that till now 4,800 acres of land had been made ready for the
SEZ and it had been directly purchased from farmers by the SEZ
management at a cost of Rs 3 lakh an acre. Still, 3,100 acres more will
be needed for the project.

He said that recently, after a long wait, the district administration
had set in motion the process for the acquisition of land, and award
involving 600 acres of dry land had been passed.

The Collector said that till now only dry land had been acquired for the
project. There would not be much evacuation of villages and only 1,800
households or so would be affected and they would be duly compensated,
he added.

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