Villagers: Give relief or job in lieu of land

Tribune News Service

Jhajjar, December 9

Residents of Raiya village in the district have demanded either job to a member of each family or compensation for land taken for establishing a regional centre of Maharana Pratap Horticultural University in the village.

A panchayat held in this regard on Saturday threatened to boycott the programmes of the BJP leaders in the village if the demand was not accepted. However, the village sarpanch skipped the meeting.

The centre is to be set up over 100 acres in the village and the district administration has recently handed over the land to the Central authorities.

“Our ancestors gave the land to the gram panchayat for ‘gaucharan’. But now, it has been leased out free of cost for the regional centre. We want either compensation or a job for each family of the village in lieu of the land. We also met Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar, but he offered merely 5 per cent jobs for the villagers,” said Ajay Dhankar, a leader of the panchayat.

He said that a panchayat of 12 villages dominated by the Dhankar khap would discuss the issue on December 16 to take a final call on mounting pressure on the state government in support of their demand.

Pardeep, husband of the sarpanch, informed the panchayat that the land had been given on lease for 33 years at the rate of Rs1 per acre per annum. As per the lease agreement, a quota of 15 per cent in the jobs had been fixed for the villagers. Even, some seats would also be reserved for the villagers in the course to be run in the centre, he added.

Yogesh Sharma, regional director of the centre, said possession of the land had been taken, while tender had also been floated for fencing.