A group of farmers from Vaarapatti panchayat in Sulur staged a protest at the Collectorate here on Wednesday opposing the 420-acre Defence Industrial Park proposed in the village.
In October, Collector G.S. Sameeran said the State government issued an order to acquire 420 acres — 409 acres of Dynamatic Technologies, 8.4 acres of Bhoomidhan land, and 4.17 acres of poromboke land — to be handed over to the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO).
The protesters, in a petition to the Collector, claimed, “Villages, including Varapatti, Pusaripaliyaram, V.Chandrapuram, Kanthampalayam, Sadayanchettipalayam, Puliyamarathupalayam, Kulathupalayam, Sultanpettai, are near this marked land where about 25,000 people are living. Further, town panchayats such as Selakkarichal, Mallegoundenpalayam, and Krishnapuram are also close by. Due to the very low rainfall in these areas, we cultivate vegetables, coconuts and bananas. We also have poultry and cattle farms.”
They claimed that they are currently accessing water from wells and borewells and that if such industrial parks are to be set up there, supply will be affected. “Already, we have witnessed that the villages near SIPCOT (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu) have been severely hit,” they stated in the petition.
