Govt urged to settle land compensation
Source: Chronicle News Service
Thoubal, August 17 2022:
Landowners of Wangjing-Lamding area affected by widening of NH 102 (Imphal-Moreh) have urged the government to settle the land acquisition compensation at the earliest.
In a release, one of the affected land owners namely L Sonamani of Lamding decried that the landowners of areas where the highway work was taken up under the National Highways Act, 1956 have repeatedly asked the government to look into the matter, but so far no concrete action has been taken.
As there was no preced-ing three-year sales data for providing compensation as per the Act, an agreement was reached with DC Thoubal for the government to fix the 'floor price'.
But an order was issued on June 16 for compensation based on preceding three-year sales data which is very unfortunate, he said.
L Sonamani claimed that the DC Thoubal's notification based on record of preceding years has created confusion as the preceding three-year sales data is incomplete as new land registration was prohibited from January 10, 2020 to July 21, 2021.The record details of the notice mentioned as Appendix (I), (II) have also not been made available whether on website or newspapers and even after repeated complaints, it has not been provided to the affected landowners, he further alleged.
Sonamani termed as very unfortunate that the government has made no plans for 'Right to Fair Compensation', 'Transparency in Land Acquisition', rehabilitation and re-settlement for the affected landowners.
Urging the government to facilitate an agreement on land compensation with willing landowners, he pointed out that the landowners do not want to go for arbitration as it will take long time, which will be hard for them as they are facing frequent flooding of their properties due to incompletion of the highway work.
Hence, the government must fix the 'floor price' and finalise the compensation as soon as possible, he further conveyed.