Times of India: Indore: Tuesday,
March 12, 2013.
Farmers of
Palakhedi staged protest on Monday against land acquisition by Madhya Pradesh
Housing Board (MPHB) for a housing scheme. The Board is acquiring 375 acre of
land for its project. "Why are they all eager to acquire land only in our
village," said one of the protesting farmers of the village, Rahul
Purohit.
The farmers
demanded documents under RTI related to approval for the proposed scheme from
state government. "The administration is refusing us the papers. We do not
want to give away our land which is our only source of livelihood,"
Purohit said.
Many farmers
of the village have given their land to Indore Development Authority (IDA) for
various schemes. "We are not against anyone. But we fail to understand why
are they bringing all projects here and making us part with our land for some
or other scheme," Purohit said.
A gazette
notification was issued in April 2012 for the residential scheme of MPHB
against which nearly 204 objections were registered by the villagers. Farmers
had met chief minister Shivraj Sing Chouhan several times over the issue and the
CM had reportedly given them verbal assurance to revoke the scheme. Even the
gram panchayat too passed a resolution last year against the scheme.
"MPHB
has not been able to complete any of its projects in the last few decades and
they are coming up with yet another project that too on agricultural
land," another farmer said.
Farmers of
Palakhedi had recently locked the MPHB office to register their protest against
the scheme.
They had also
met collector Akash Tripathi but to no avail. The farmers had then threatened
that if their land is acquired, they will not allow IT companies like TCS and
Infosys which have been allotted land in those areas, to come up with the
proposed centres.
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