Farmers in MP's Chattarpur yet to receive compensation

Bhopal: Hundreds of farmers of Madhya Pradesh's Chattarpur district are yet to receive compensation due to announcement of an incorrect award by a Sub Division Officer (SDO) of revenue for their land acquired by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in 2017 to widen NH 39.

The NHAI had on March 25 2017 acquired land of the farmers of the 7 villages of Rajnagar sub-division of the district to construct a four-lane National Highways-39 connecting Jhansi and Khajuraho but the then SDO of Rajnagar Sub Division of Chhatarpur, Sonia Meena who was also the Land Acquisition Officer (LAO), had made a major mistake in calculating the compensation of the acquired land while announcing the award, due to which the farmers have been bearing the bite of the stupidness of the revenue officer. They have been running till now from pillar to post to get compensation but no one is paying heed towards their grievances.

Even after being an IAS officer, Meena had made a major mistake which has become unfortunate for the poor farmers of the Bundelkhand which is considered a poverty region for most of the residents there.

"The NHAI acquired my 0.110-hectare land of survey nos 1118/1 and 1118/2/2 and announced a compensation of Rs 128,709 in the award while my neighbour, Shakuntala Jain whose land's survey no is 1118/2/1 got Rs 1119,683 against her 040-hectare. The LAO had calculated a contradictory and a wrongful award," Shobhana Sharma, a landowner of Basari village told Millennium Post.

"Hundreds of farmers of the area have been running since then from pillar to post to get compensation but no one is helping us," she said.

In the award, the LAO, who is also a competent authority under The Right Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 for compensating the acquired land, had made a major mistake in calculating award for the area above 0.050-hectare.

According to the RFCTLARR Act 2013 and National Highways Act 1956, up to 0.050 lands must be calculated considering as plot area and the remained area as agricultural fields. In the award, more than 0.050-hectare area had been calculated as agricultural land.

The villagers of Basari, Deogaon, Ganj, Satna, Khairi and Ghoora submitted a complaint to the SDO Rajnagar Saloni Sadana, till then Sonia had been transferred to another place from there.

Considering the complaints, the competent authority had on March 13 2018 passed a supplementary award but the project director of NHAI is yet to release the amount against the acquired land.

Some farmers have also filed the application at divisional commissioner Sagar in this regard for arbitrations but it is still pending.

"If any supplementary award in this regard has been passed by the then SDO then I will get implemented it by the NHAI in the interest of farmers," D P Dwivedi, SDO Rajnagar told Millennium Post.

Another farmer Govinddas Kushwaha said that the SDO passed the award blindly, in which several mistakes had been made and it has poured into the poor farmers in difficulties.