Shiradi: DK DC A B Ibrahim convened a meeting under the supervision of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board at Shiradi Government Higher Primary School on October 9 and said that the villagers have urged the government to provide proper compensation to the affected families without delay.

DC said that after participating in the a public hearing convened by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), residents of Shiradi and surrounding areas said that they did not oppose to the project but expressed their dissatisfaction over the compensation package offered by the government for the land acquisition for proposed four laning of Hassan-B C Road national highway.

Kishor Shiradi Convener of Malnad Jana Hitharakshana Vedike said that said that the officials stated that the compensation would be given only to people residing in private land.

He also said that NHAI Technical Manager Shirish Gangadhar had stated that Compensation will not be given to families residing in encroached government land. As per the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, road widening project comes under public cause and hence valuation of the land have begun and the compensation will be given to the families before evicting them.

Replying for the complaint by general public that they were not informed them about the area they are going to lose because of the project, officers said that NHAI has already published 3A notification for the acquisition of non-forest land in February 2013 and a proposal to prepare a draft 3D notification is under process. They were also informed that the public will be issued with Personal notifications after the completion of valuation process.

Few affected families did not show any interest to retain few cents of land after the large portion of their land was acquired for the project. Hence the DC instructed the NHAI to acquire the left over land too, if the land owners get less than five cents.

DC said that proposed four-laning work of 134 km stretch between Hassan and B C Road including Shiradi Ghat will be taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 1,605 crore. The new project funded Central government expected to start in October 2015.