GAIL, farmers sign deal on piped LPG

CHITRADURGA: The stalled Dabhol-Bangalore Liquefied Natural Gas pipeline project will begin with farmers and the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) signing a deal recently.Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha leader KT Gangadhar told Express on Friday that as per our demands, GAIL has agreed to compensate our lands by increasing the compensation by five times more than the guidance value.Apart from this, we will also get 30 per cent ex gratia over the compensation, which will not affect farmers, he added.He said the land value would be paid immediately and that of the crops would be completely paid by September.GAIL has also agreed to give compensation of `70,696 per acre for onion crop.Giving details of the talks, he said: “GAIL officials also agreed over the issue of no objection during conversion of agricultural land through which the gas pipeline has passed. GAIL has agreed to a majority of the demands put forth by farmers.” It may be recalled that farmers of Dodda Siddavanahalli village in the district halted the work of the pipeline project and sent back the machines and officials working in their fields.The pipeline aimed at bringing 16 million metric standard cubic metres of gas per day from Dabhol in Maharastra to Bangalore. This project would also provides piped gas for kitchen use in Bangalore, Hubli, Dharwad, Davangere, Harihar, Chitradurga and Tumkur.