Karwar: People who lost their land for INS Kadamba Naval Base, staged a protest here on 17th July, Monday, accusing L&T Company, which won the contract of naval base phase II work, of not considering locals for construction works. They also stopped non-Karnataka vehicles from entering the naval base.

The protest was held under the banner of Seabird Land Losers Cooperative Society in front of the Naval Base’s Arga gate. The agitators blocked the trucks from Gujarat, which were entering the naval base for construction work. The naval base in Karwar is being expanded at a cost of Rs 19,600 crore.

Once the second phase work gets completed, it will become the largest naval base in Asia. For the expansion work, a tender was recently awarded to L&T. The protesters said that L&T has given subcontract to an Andhra based company, which is hiring employees from other states and trucks from Gujarat for material supply, neglecting the locals.

“We have given our properties for the naval base considering national interest and now, we are totally depended on contract works at naval base,” they said. Even after 30 years of parting with their properties, many of them have not got proper compensation so far, said Prashant, a land-loser.

“We have trucks, tippers and all kinds of vehicles in Karwar and Ankola taluks. Even then we are neglected, and the contractors are hiring Gujarat and other state vehicles for the works. They should hire our vehicles instead of other state vehicles,” they demanded.

The protesters contacted MLA Satish Sail and District Minister R V Deshpande, who assured them of solving the problem.