Land owners stage protest, submit memorandum

Our Correspondent

Sundernagar, January 28

Hundreds of land owners whose land was being acquired for the four-lane project between Nagchala and Manali held a protest rally at the Historical Seri Manch today under the banner of the Four-lane Sangharsh Samiti.

The offices-bearers of the samiti submitted a memorandum to the Centre and the state government through Deputy Commissioner Mandi to implement the provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation, Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

Brig Khushal Thakur, president of the samiti, addressed a gathering that had come from six Assembly segments of Mandi and Kullu districts, said the new Land Acquisition was passed by the previous UPA government in 2013 and was implemented from April 1, 2014. It was further made applicable to the acquisition for the National Highways in the state w.e.f January 1, 2015, but it was not implemented despite number of requests and agitations by the samiti for the past one year.

He said a number of representations were made to various authorities, but none of politicians of the either parties came forward to know the problems being faced by the public.

He said the state government was violating while implementing the new Act. He said though the law provided compensation factor for calculating compensation, but the state government had issued a notification on April 1, 2015, and reduced the compensation factor.

He said the market value was being calculated wrongly and due to it farmers were not getting the price which they had paid at the time of purchase of land.

He accused the state government of not carrying out any social impact assessment which was mandatory and should have been done before issuing preliminary notifications by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

He accused the state government of not giving rehabilitation and resettlement benefits to the affected farmers and people were not taken into confidence while conducting the acquisition.

He said the people were not against the compulsory land acquisition as it was being acquired for development and growth of the country, but if the new Land Acquisition was implemented it would prove more draconian than the British law of 1894 (old land acquisition Act) in which people could at least go to the lower courts.

He appealed the state government to implement the provisions of the new Land Acquisition Act for the four-lane project between Nagchala and Manali. Office-bearers Brejesh Mahant, Dharminder Thakur, Seema Kapoor, Jayoti Parkash, Brij Kisor, Mohinder Thakur, Mohan Lal and Dinesh Sen were also present.