Vijayawada: Land acquisition for Machilipatnam port

Vijayawada: The district administration is contemplating to have a dialogue with the CCLA commissioner over taking back 6,500 acres of land given to Bharat Salts under lease. In fact, the land pooling for Machilipatnam port is supposed to be completed shortly. The district administration wants the intervention of CCLA commissioner in order to get the Bharat Salts lease cancellation orders. Once this lease order is cancelled, the port activity would be speeded up.

The district administration has noticed violations of Bharat Salts, which has entered into lease agreement in the year 2002, and its tenure is up to 2021 for an acreage of 6,500 acres. However, it is observed that the Bharat Salts has violated the lease norms, by producing industrial salt, instead of edible salt. Apart from this, Bharat Salts is facing allegations that it has encroached another 200 acres, in addition to the leased land, and also didn’t start any production up to 2014. As per the lease agreement, in case any violation is found, the lease can be terminated by giving one year notice.

By stating the same, the district administration has written a letter to the CCLA commissioner a few months back, and interestingly the CCLA commissionerate has sent back the letter to the collectorate to take a decision on the same. When the same issue was brought to the knowledge of district collector B. Lakshmikantham, he said that he would speak to the CCLA Commissioner, in order to get the issue solved. “As part of land pooling, we are concentrating on addressing the issues on priority basis, as we need to hand over the lands to director (Ports) shortly. The contractors would take over the land from director (Ports) for the development,” Mr Lakshmikantham explained.

In fact, since the last two years, the state government has been trying to explore the option of acquiring nearly 475 acres owned by the Salt Commission for the proposed deep sea port at Machilipatnam. The government resorted to the option, as farmers in the proposed area made it clear that they would not allow fertile land to be acquired for the project. The then excise and BC welfare minister K. Ravindra had said then that the state government would request the Centre to spare the identified 970 acres for the project near Manginapudi beach. Of the total 970 acres, nearly 400 acres owned by the Salt Commission is used for salt cultivation, and small farmers have been given lease on it near the beach.

Salt lands to be taken over for Masula port:

The district collector has directed Machilipatnam Urban Development Authority (MAUDA) vice-chairman Venugopal Reddy to initiate a dialogue with the salt commissioner, Chennai, over the 475 acres of salt lands located in the proposed port area. The district administration has to show equal acreage of land to the salt commissionerate and now the authorities are on the job to locate the land in Machilipatnam limits. The salt commisionerate, Chennai, and the district administration would carry out a joint inspection soon, according to the district Collector B. Lakshmikantham. In fact, the state government’s proposal to build ports along the coastline poses a major threat to the marine salt industry which till recently was a flourishing industry from Nellore to Srikaku-lam, according to the marine experts.

Though the Centre has fixed a nine-month period for salt production, the low pressure in Bay of Bengal has resulted in reduction of the period of salt production to six months. The central salt commissioner leases out the salt pans running into thousands of acres under its control for the production of salt. Besides, private persons too produce salt in places like Machilipatnam. Though officials in the state ports department deny any negative effect on the salt industry from the port, experts have been saying that prior to the setting up of Krishnapartnam port, there was nearly 400 tonnes of salt production in the area. But, the salt production has come down to zero level in the area. The officials further added that the main reason cited by the salt producers in the area was that the dust and pollution caused by the port activities had been turning the salt into black and about 750 acres of salt pans were allocated to the port by the Centre. Now, the Krishna district administration is assessing the impact of port activity on salt production in the deep sea port.