Mancherial: Farmers who gave land for NH 363 demand more compensation

Scores of farmers from Boyapalli in Thandur mandal and many other villages across the stretch allege that they were paid lower compensation than other farmers.

Mancherial: The national highway 363 connecting Mancherial with Chandrapur of Maharashtra, work on which commenced in 2020, was thrown open to traffic a few months ago. However, farmers whose lands were acquired to lay the 94 kilometre four-lane road network in the district have been demanding to get what they feel is a reasonable compensation for over four years.

Scores of farmers from Boyapalli in Thandur mandal and many other villages across the stretch allege that they were paid lower compensation than other farmers. They said they had submitted applications to revenue officials seeking enhancement of compensation in 2020, but had not received anything so far.

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Forty-one guntas of land belonging to Dasari Kamala Devi, an elderly woman from Boyapalli, was acquired to form the highway in 2020. She was offered a compensation of around Rs.350 per square metre. “I submitted applications with the official responsible for acquiring lands for public interest requesting him to increase the compensation, but in vain,” Raghu, Kamala’s son, said.

In contrast, Kamala’s neighboring farmer, Chippa Ramesh and others were paid Rs.1,370 per square metre. While Kamala Devi’s land was near to the road, Ravi’s property was away from the stretch. Still, Ramesh was able to get considerably higher compensation than Kamala. One of the reasons behind this striking difference was that Ramesh and others approached the arbitrator with the help of a lawyer.

Farmers unaware of arbitration facility

Raghu said he was not aware of the arbitration, a special and simplified facility for addressing grievances of land losers within a stipulated period of three years and 90 days. Not only Kamala, many other farmers were ignorant of the facility created by the High Court for speedy disposal of cases of land acquisitions relating to national highways in the country. The Collector of a district is appointed as an arbitrator considering his familiarity with the lands and its values. He or she can raise the compensation after hearing versions of those who give land and taking market value of the land into consideration.

“But the revenue officials neither respond to the applications, not created awareness among the farmers over the facility of the arbitrator for receiving commensurate compensation for unknown reasons,” K Shravan, an advocate specialized in arbitration cases, said.

Land prices not revised since 2013

Shravan reasoned that the innocent farmers were offered nominal compensation as the government considered the value of lands fixed in 2013, but not recent times. According to Right to Fair, Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, Revenue Divisional Officers (RDO) who are appointed as Competitive Authority in Land Acquisition (CALA) should revise the prices of the assets by gathering information from local sub-registration offices and mandal revenue officers.

“The CALAs should fix rates of land by taking an average cost by estimating development of a region projected in 10 years. The RDOs neither follow the norms in deciding prices, nor take up the exercise and as a result, farmers did not get reasonable compensation for their lands,” he said.

Lawyers said around 500 farmers from the district approached the arbitrator recently, but the period of disposing the cases was already over. They requested officials to take steps to ensure justice for them in view of delay caused by Covid-19 pandemic.

Project: Four-laning of NH 363 from Mancherial to Wankidi

Distance of project: 94.6 km

Toll gates: 2

Packages: 2

Estimated cost: Rs 2,497 Cr

Package-I

Concessionaire: Mancherial-Repallewada Road Private Limited

EPC contractor: Adani Road Transport Limited

Sub-Contractor: HGF Infra Limited

Starting point: Indaram junction

Ending point: Repallewada

Distance: 42 km

Project cost: Rs 1,356.9 Cr

Funds granted: 2018

Works commenced: August, 2020

Land required for package I: 592 acres

Land acquisition process began in: 2018

Package-II

Concessionaire: Repallewada Highways Private Limited

EPC contractor: Dilip Bildcon Limited

Starting point: Indaram junction

Ending point: Repallewada

Distance: 52.06 km

Project cost: Rs 1,140 Cr

Works commenced: March, 2021

Deadline: March, 2023

Land acquired: 555 acres

Land acquisition process began in: 2019