Farmers Movement Archive

Delhi-Asr-Katra e-way: Farmers protest public hearing

Patiala: Land owners farmers in Patiala and Sangrur districts protested against the public hearing by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) as part of the land acquisition process for the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway. They gheraoed the Sangrur district officials and NHAI team members here for the public hearing. The land owners said they were not satisfied with the compensation being awarded for their agriculture land and houses or shops. They also said the process should be stopped till the issue of three agricultural laws gets resolved. The affected farmers claimed that the Sangrur district administration had earlier deferred the public hearing but on Thursday they brought “fake farmers” for the process. The public hearing was scheduled to take place on Friday. Punjab had lobbied hard with the Centre to get the desired alignment of the greenfield expressway that is to pass through eight of its districts and also cut the time between Delhi and Amritsar to four hours. However, the projects has faced resistance in most districts now, with farm leaders linked its progress with the Centre’s three agriculture marketing laws and also seeking higher compensation. Delhi Katra Expressway Kisan Sangharsh Committee (DKEKSC) Punjab coordinator Harmanpreet Singh Jeji alleged, “The officials in Sangrur issued a notification to defer the public hearing but on Thursday they were getting conducted the public hearing secretly. We immediately marked our protest and now we are staging sit-in for an indefinite period against the state government demanding the acquisition proceedings to be halted till the farm laws issue is resolved. The central government only want to acquire the agricultural land from Punjabis with a motive to ruin them in one or other way but we will not let this happen.” However, DKEKSC Punjab president Sukhdev Singh Dhillon said, “We have no concern with the farmers agitating against the central government. Our demand is only that government should pay us Rs 3.5 crore per acre compensation amount. On Thursday, we had gheraoed the officials, including the project manager of NHAI, who had taken the memorandum from us. The public hearing could not take place.” Sangrur DC and SDM could not be contacted but Patiala deputy commissioner Kumar Amit said that he was unaware about any protest by farmers but had called a meeting of the officials concerned to look into the matter. The Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway is a 687-km-long (427 mi) controlled-access expressway that which will connect Delhi with Amritsar in Punjab and Katra in Jammu and Kashmir. The expressway goes to Nakodar in Jalandhar district where it forks into two separate spurs, one of which goes west to Amritsar and another to Katra. The road will reduce Delhi-Amritsar distance to 405 km or travel time to 4 hours from 8 hours.

The Times of India

2021-02-26

Chandigarh