Gangtok: In a press release by Gyatso Lepcha, President of CLOS(Concerned Lepchas of Sikkim), Mr Lepcha stated that many of the mentioned land owners had given their consent unknowlingly. He further stated that most of the elderly landowners had been misled with false assurances by the Panchayat members and the power companies and made to sign on black papers on the pretext that they would be provided with housing grants, GCI sheets, and toilets etc!, roads leading to villages and homes and also promises of parchas (legal ownership document) of Forest land in exchange for the land they were to part with !The other members there stated that the public hearing had not been conducted legally since many of the people had been forcefully stopped from attending it. They also stated that the hill where the power house is coming up is sacred, like the hot spring located at the site of the power project and that since 1990 there was been opposition to the power projects. Further, they appealed to bring attention to Notification-3069 of 1950 which establishes Dzongu as a protected area of the state and that whether such old laws of Sikkim which are protected by Article 371 F of the Constitution of India had been amended in view of the present need for the developmental projects of hydel dams there.
