Patiala’s Northern bye-pass land acquisition issue: be ready for sustained agitation if fair compensation is not given-NK Sharma
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ April 24,2024
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Lok Sabha candidate N K Sharma today demanded the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and BJP led Centre government award a base rate of Rs 2.88 crore per acre for 300 acres of land being acquired for the Northern bye-pass near the city or be ready for a sustained agitation by the SAD to secure justice for farmers.
The SAD’s Patiala candidate also interacted with aggrieved farmers on the occasion who announced that farmers of 24 villages who were affected would not allow AAP and BJP representatives to enter their villages in case they were not given a fair award by the district administration. The farmers also detailed how both BJP candidate Preneet Kaur and AAP candidate Dr Balbir Singh had refused to extend any help to them.
N K Sharma, who addressed a press conference along with former Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra, Jaspal Singh Bittu Chattha and farmer representatives, said the central government led by the BJP and the AAP government in Punjab had colluded with each other to deny a fair compensation to farmers. He said former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had given a compensation of Rs 1.93 crore to farmers for land acquired for the Southern bye-pass in the city in 2016. “Now after a span of seven years, the AAP government is offering farmers a base rate of only Rs 30 lakh per acre”.
Terming this as gross discrimination against farmers, N K Sharma said “as per the land acquisition act the State government is bound to take the average sale price of the highest value of the land which is to be acquired and give three times compensation of the same”. He said as per this formula, the average sale price of land acquired in Jassowal, Chamarheri and Sidhuwal villages was Rs 2.88 crore per acre. “Once three times compensation is added to this, the final compensation comes to Rs 10 crore per acre compared to the final compensation of Rs 1 crore per acre being offered by the AAP government”.
Mr Sharma said the land being acquired for the Northern bye-pass was close to the urban area and companies like Torrent and Reliance had already purchased land in the area for sums varying from Rs 4.60 crore to Rs 5.50 crore per acre several years back. “Today this land is even more expensive with many residential colonies also being established in the area”.
Patiala’s Northern bye-pass land acquisition issue: be ready for sustained agitation if fair compensation is not given-NK Sharma . The SAD leader also condemned chief minister Bhagwant Mann for failing to meet the aggrieved farmers. He said the farmers had gone to meet the chief minister eight times but the latter had refused to meet them. He said the farmers had approached the high court in despair but the Patiala district administration had refused to give an award for the land in sixty days as mandated by the court.
Farmers said it had been 84 days since the directive of the high court for releasing the award for the land had been issued but they were still not getting justice with the Patiala deputy commissioner refusing to relook into the faulty manner in which the base price of the land was being calculated. The farmers said the land had been transferred to the government in December 2021 but they were still awaiting announcement of the award on the same. They also asked BJP and AAP candidates from Patiala to not to enter these 24 villages for seeking votes.
