Nellore: Residents of Kottapatnam area in Kota mandal of Nellore district have launched an agitation once again against the proposed Krishnapatnam International Leather Complex Pvt Ltd.
Environment clearance was accorded to the project in 2014 despite the fact that residents of 10 surrounding villages had staged protests against the hazardous tanning activity and had also disturbed the proceedings of the public hearing held two times in the past.
The Centre has provided Rs 125 crore for the implementation of the project with grant/funding under the mega leather cluster scheme of government of India and the state government has already allotted 532.69 acres for the project.
However the villagers resisted the recent move by the KILCPL and APIIC to launch project work with Rs 31.25 crore released by the union government for the compound wall around the land besides roads and drainage facility.
Though officials tried to convince the public that there was no tanning activity and only shoe manufacturing would be taken up in the area citing a communication from KILCPL, residents were not convinced under the plea that this assurance did not come in the form of a government order.
The residents and farmers of the Kottapatnam Panchayat have also expressed doubts over the genuineness of beneficiaries identified for compensating 129 acres of land at Vavilladoruvu village, a hamlet of Kottapatnam Panchyat.
One of the leaders opposing the project, Perneti Syam Prasad Reddy said none of the beneficiaries belonged to Kottaapatnam or Kota mandal and therefore the validity of revenue records was hugely suspect.
He said there were many locals cultivating in the 400 acres of land belonging to the government but they had been denied compensation because there names were not in revenue records.
Alleging that revenue records were not updated after the Anti Corruption Bureau had seized the records in 2011-12 during the investigation of a huge land scam in Gudur division, he said real farmers were being victimized for no fault of theirs.
He said they would not allow any activity in the land allotted to KILCPL unless compensation was paid to genuine farmers and a GO was issued by the Centre against any tanning activity in the site.
