Administration offers ‘fair’ compensation after farmers refused to give land

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 13

After farmers refused to give their land for the Katra-Delhi Expressway, the district administration on Wednesday directed all competent authorities for land acquisition (CALAs) to immediately implement modified multiplication factor rates in the district.

Divulging the details, Deputy Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori said these multiplication factors have been modified by the state government under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013, through a notification on January 12, 2021.

At present, there were three major projects in the district, where compensation award fixation was due — Delhi-Katra Expressway, Jalandhar Ring Road Project, and Bathinda Green Field project. He said the new factors would be applied on all three.

He said according to these factors, the market value of a rural property is multiplied in case the government wished to acquire it for any development project. Earlier, there were only two thresholds of multiplication factor i.e. factor of 1, and 1.25, modifying which the state government has taken these factors up to 2 according to the distance of rural land from the urban body.

Now, the market value of the land will be calculated by the CALA keeping in view the newly modified factors. As per the notification, in case the land falls within 5 km from the outer boundary of any urban area in the state, the market value will be multiplied by 1.0, adding that the factor of 1.25 will be applicable on land 5 km to 10 km from the outer boundary of any urban (Municipal Council/Municipal Committees/Nagar Panchayat). Similarly, the factor will be 1.5 for the distance from above 10 to 15 km, 1.75 for the distance from above 15 to 20 km, and the market value will be multiplied by the factor of 2 if the land falls above 20 km away from urban areas.

Pointing out further, competent authority for land acquisition (CALA)-cum-SDM-2 Rahul Sindhu and district revenue officer-cum-CALA Jashanjit Singh said the multiplication factor formula is applied to fix the market value of land in case of land acquisition. The higher the multiplication factor, the higher the market value will be. They said this new formula would apply to land acquisitions, where compensation award was yet to be fixed by the authorities and on all future projects.