Around 800 Tamil families have been displaced by the building of Sampur power plant and continue to live in misery, reported The Hindu.
According to the paper, the Sampur power plant, a joint project by Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and India’s National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC), will take up more land than needed for the plant.
The land was taken from Tamils who vacated the area during the conflict.
Bagyarathinam Yogeswari, one of the affected IDPs, said her land was nowhere near the area earmarked for the plant.
“It is actually coming up a little far away from my land, but still they [Sri Lankan government] have taken over land owned by many of us. They say it is for the plant,” she says.
The chairman of the CEB told The Hindu that the firm had not acquired more land than needed.
“The additional land has been acquired for a company called Gateway that is said to be owned by a close relative of the President,” said TNA MP and lawyer for some of the families, MA Sumanthiran.