TIRUNELVELI: At a time when a sense of euphoria has come to stay in the villages near the proposed Special Economic Zone at Nanguneri, thanks to the boom in real estate business owing to the proposal to have a hi-tech park in the SEZ, the residents of Inaam Alangulam are living with fear of eviction.

The village, situated on the Nanguneri - Ervadi stretch, has five streets with 450 houses.

Of them, houses on two streets are on the land belonging to Nanguneri Seer Mutt. Other houses are on patta land.

One hundred and fifty acres of cultivable wetland around the village, also belonging to the mutt, has been feeding the villagers through the `kar' and `pisanam' paddy seasons.

The proposed SEZ is to come up on the barren land east of the village. Officials felt that the land acquired (2,100 acres) was insufficient and decided to acquire 450 acres more.

The villagers were confused when a team of Revenue Department officials recently marked the land and two streets for acquisition.

If the farmland around the village and two irrigation tanks - Mela Kulam and Keezha Kulam - was acquired, the people would be forced to leave the village.

"Instead of acquiring the wetland, around 450 acres of barren land south of Soorankudi, Kadamboduvaazhvu and Kalungadi could be acquired," said Aalai V. Subramanian (65), Communist Party of India's Inaam Alangulam farmers' wing secretary.

A group of farmers from the village, led by the CPI's Nanguneri Union farmers' wing secretary, Perumbadaiyaar, recently submitted a petition to the Collector, G. Prakash.

"When alternative land is available, the administration should look into the possibility. Otherwise, we will mobilise the farmers against any land acquisition and organise an agitation," Mr. Perumbadaiyaar said.

Official sources said that the final decision on acquiring the land was yet to be taken by the Government, which alone could clarify whether the land in the village would be acquired or not.

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