The Crux of Gundia

The Crux of Gundia Hydel Project
The Crux of the Gundia Hydel Project is a battle between the Patta Land Owners(Revenue Land) Vs Encroached Forest Land Owners.
Majority of the people around the proposed site have lands which they had Encroached from the reserve forest for their (Paddy, Cardamom, Coffee) Cultivation as this region which used to receive a rainfall of over 300 inches of annual rainfall every year, But not in last couple of year where fragmentation of habitat and excessive timber logging has reduced the average rainfall to around 250to 220 inches annually.
There are very few people who have lands with Proper Supporting documents who have the right to claim their land as their own and also classify them as revenue land.
But as I mentioned earlier the Majority of the people having Legitamate revenue lands are Minuscule. There are people have revenue lands as their base but since the adjoining areas of their land were a part of a reserve forest they have extended their farming inside the reserve forest and now they claim it’s their land .
The photos of this can be seen in Annexure 1 to Annexure 4
Now this brings to our next question why are these people protesting against the Hydel Project Proposed by KPCL.
1. The people who are having legitimate revenue land aren’t the one who are protesting against this hydel power project. Because these people are ready to sell their land to KPCL for a better compensation (5Lakhs/Per acre of land).
2. The Majority of the people are protesting the Hydel Power Project because these people might have only few acre’s of land in their name with proper legitimate supporting documents. But large chunks of the land have been encroached by the adjoining reserve forest for which these people don’t have papers.
3. KPCL obviously would be willing to compensate people who have legitimate revenue lands and in this case these people wouldn’t be getting proper compensation as their encroached land will be a part of the project and they wouldn’t be getting any compensation.
4. These People are actually indirectly protesting the Hydel Power Project as its effect their Livelihood and their encroached land will not be compensated by the KPCL, but as all people who live in the fringes of the forest, they are looking at only short-term gains and neglecting the long term catastrophically impacts which is going effect them in the Future.