Mangaluru : The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) has decided to pay Rs 60 lakh for taking up compensatory afforestation and to seek permission for the felling of the trees on the land identified for urban housing project, from the Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change (MoEF). In addition, the MCC has also decided to hand over 20-acre alternative land to the Forest Department as compensation for taking up the housing project on deemed forest land at Rajiv Nagara in Padavu village of Shaktinagara.

The four-year-old housing project initiated jointly under Pradhan Mantri Awaz Yojana (PMAY) and State government fund aimed at constructing 930 houses on a 10-acre land on survey number 82 (G +3 model) for the poor shelterless in Mangaluru city. The proposal for the project was approved on September 30, 2016. Even after four years, the poor who were given the title deeds are still waiting for a roof over their head, drawing criticism from various quarters.

After initial work of calling the tenders for the works were taken up, environment groups raised objections stating that it was a deemed forest and the Forest Department too withheld the permission to clear the trees on the said land. As a result, the project suffered a setback.

According to officials, the MCC has to get permission from the MoEF to continue the project and an online application seeking permission to fell trees have been submitted on January 24, 2020.

In addition, the MCC has written to Tahsildar to earmark 20-acre land on survey number 100/4 at Tenkayedapadavu, in the name of MCC, to be handed over to the Forest Department, for afforestation.

The council of the Mangaluru City Corporation has recently approved the proposal for the handing over Rs 60 lakh and 20-acre alternative land to the Forest Department. MLA Vedavyasa Kamath during the council meeting had said: “I have been personally pursuing the matter to make the project a reality at the earliest.”

In fact, the title deeds for the 930 beneficiaries of the project were handed over on February 24, 2018. It may be recalled that the failure to start the project had even led to spar over the project between the former MLA J R Lobo and current MLA Vedavyasa Kamath, a few months ago. The estimated cost of the project was Rs 69.5 crore and the unit cost of each house was Rs 5 lakh, of which a sum of Rs 1.8 lakh would be borne by the state government for SCs and Rs 1.2 lakh for others; Rs 1.5 lakh by Central government and Rs 1 lakh by MCC for SCs, for others Rs 70,000 and the remaining amount would be borne by the individual beneficiaries.