Body warns over sports varsity site
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, February 29 2016:
The National Sports University Construction Demand Committee has warned the State Government that construction of the sports university at 44-Yaithibi Loukon would be met with stiff opposition and it may lead to large scale casualties.
Speaking to media persons at Manipur Press Club here today, the committee's vice-president Mutum Churamani noted that the State Government has acquired 336 acres of land at Yaithibi Loukon and a proposal has been sent to the Centre for construction of National sports university.
Reacting to the Chief Minister's statement given on the floor of the House that the State Government is awaiting Centre's approval to construct the sports university at Yaithibi Loukon, Churamani appealed to the Government to construct the university with due consent of people.
He remarked that the sports university cannot be constructed even though it has been one year and a half since the project was sanctioned by the Centre on account of the controversy over the site chosen for the university.
Whereas local people of Yaithibi Loukon have been opposing construction of sports university at their locality, people of Moirang, Awang Lamphel and Senjam Chirang-Koutruk have offered lands for the university at their respective localities.
After a joint meeting of 29 civil society organisations and people of the three villages were held, it was decided that Senjam Chirang-Koutruk Khunou would be the most suitable site for the sports university, Churamani said.
The site selected at Senjam Chirang-Koutruk Khunou is neither a low land nor an agricultural land.
The site is also vacant in the vicinity which can be acquired in case the university needs expansion in future.
But Yaithibi Loukon is a lowland and it would require land development up to a height of around 10 feet and the Government must also pay land compensation apart from destroying agricultural land.
He then urged the Government to constitute a site selection committee and discuss the same matter in the ongoing Assembly session.
The Yaithibi Loukon Cooperative Farming Society comprises of Okram Ibotombi, Tarpon, Naba, Leishang and others, and the society has been craving only for land compensation after changing the name of the particular area without any knowledge of land owners, Churamani alleged.
He added that he came to know about this through an RTI application.