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Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation and thousands of local fishermen have agreed to work collaboratively as the former seeks to implement the Deen Dayal-West gas block of Krishna-Godavari basin.
About 16,500 fishermen from 63 villages in East Godavari district, including 12 villages in Yanam, will get a compensation of Rs 11 crore a month during the gas evacuation pipeline implementation phase between the offshore facility to the landing point, Mr P. V.Satish Kumar, Mummidivaram MLA, said.
“It has been agreed that each fisherman will get a compensation equivalent to daily wage. It works out to Rs 6780/ month. This will be for about 6-8 months when the pipeline is laid,” he said.
“Fishermen are not against development but want to be compensated adequately for the loss of fish catch due to rig and pipeline works being laid . Since most of the fishing activity is also pursued at night, a large area is cordoned off and security put in place hampers fishing.”
After over 100 days of agitation and several rounds of negotiations, GSPC has agreed to compensate and deposited a cheque on Monday in the presence of the Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy.
A GSPC official requesting anonymity said, “The corporate office is empowered to speak on the project. He confirmed that the cheque from head office was handed over to the Collector. The project work is underway.”
BIG OUTLAY
GSPC DD-West Block spread over 20 km is estimated to hold 3 trillion cubic feet. The Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons had approved a plan of 2 TCF and GSPC indicated at outlay of Rs 4,200 crore initially and later Rs 4,000 crore more on the project.
It has acquired land for onshore processing facility.
While it has initially planned for gas output by 2012, but this may likely to be by the end of 2013 or early 2014, sources said.
Initially, it was agreed that GSPC would earmark about 0.4 per cent for CSR activity.
The fishermen demanded 2 per cent but it was agreed to set apart 1 per cent of the project cost.
GSPC has been asked to compensate for the loss of livelihood by inducting some of the locals in the project. A Government committee is looking into this aspect, he said.
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