MADURAI: People in Alagapuram panchayat petitioned to the Tuticorin district collector on Monday urging him not to acquire land from the village to set up a rocket launch pad at Kulasekarapattinam .

In their petition, the villagers said they were not against development and industrialisation that would create jobs. However, they said they didn’t want to give up their residential areas for this purpose.

After petitioning the collector, former president of Alagapuram panchayat Kamaraj told reporters that there were around 2,000 families in the panchayat. The government had been doing preliminary work for the establishment of the much-talked about rocket launch pad of Isro at Kulasekarapattinam which is close to Alagapuram, they said.

“The blueprint for the same has been prepared and our panchayat too is covered under area to be acquired,” he said.

Kamaraj said that this had been only rumoured till revenue officials led by the Sathankulam tahsildar visited Alagapuram with around 20 officials and started survey work for the land acquisition process on May 27. “Any development should not affect the people living there. So people of our locality protested any move by the officials in the residential areas. We will not give up our residential areas,” he added.

