Times
of India: Chandigarh: Wednesday, 14 January 2015.
Farmers of
Gorakhpur village in Fatehabad district of Haryana, whose land was acquired for
setting up country's largest 2,800 MW nuclear power plant, are now claiming
that the state failed to keep the promises made while taking their consent for
acquiring the property. The villagers have now submitted a complaint to the
chief minister's window at Fatehabad asking the state government to fulfill the
conditions on which the land was taken.
The complaint
is accompanied by a copy of the affidavit mentioning the conditions on which
the government had taken the farmers' land. According to the affidavit received
by these farmers through an application under the RTI Act from the revenue
department, the landowners had been promised Rs 50 lakh per acre and a
government job for one member of each project-affected family. Documents
sourced through RTI also stated that the mutual agreement was signed by the
representatives of the department and the farmers, following which the latter
surrendered their land to the state.
"We gave
our consent as per the agreement, but were paid just Rs 34.70 lakh per acre as
against the promise of Rs 50 lakh mentioned in the affidavits. There is no sign
of government job to the family members who have been displaced due to land
acquisition," said Satyawan, who has given the complaint to the CM.
The state
government had acquired around 1,500 acres from farmers of Gorakhpur, Kajalheri
and Badopal for the nuclear power project. It was acquired after protests from
2010 to 2012, in which two persons had also lost their lives. The protest was
even supported by social activist Anna Hazare, former Army chief and now Union
minister Gen V K Singh and chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who was in
opposition at that time.
Satyawan
informed that 846 families of these three villages have lost their land and
majority of them were small farmers having landholding of 2-3 acres. Around 100
'dhanis (hamlets)' were living with their livestock on the acquired land and
are now left with no choice but to leave the area.
Balwant
Singh, who has procured a copy of the affidavit through the RTI Act, said it
was crystal clear from the documents that farmers were offered lucrative
benefits in anticipation of giving their land for the project, but the promise
was not kept by the state authorities.
Inaugurated
on January 1, 2014 by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Rs 23,502-crore
project of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) would be
country's largest nuclear plant with a capacity to generate 2,800 MW
electricity.
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