Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), northern division, Pramod Kumar Meherda has asked the district Collectors of six districts to pay compensation to the Hirakud land oustees within a month without fail.
“It is really disgracing to see the land oustees have been deprived of their legitimate dues for over 60 years after completion of the Hirakud dam,” the RDC said at a meeting with the Collectors here. It was specially called to review the compensation issue of the Hirakud, Rourkela steel plant and Rengali dam land oustees.
Prior to this, a notification had been issued to the deprived land oustees to apply for compensation. In response, a good number of land oustees had applied. But it became difficult for the administration to identify the claimants for entitling them to rehabilitation as the latter didn’t give sufficient proof.
In absence of proper identification proof, 569 families of Sambalpur district, 416 of Bargarh, 257 of Jharsuguda and 78 of Sonepur district were yet to get compensation amount. Compensation apart, the RDC further asked the Collectors to regularise the DC Pattas given to the land oustees in 1956-57.
On January 10 last, RDC Dr Meherda had given instructions to the Collectors and fixed February, 2014 as the deadline to issue the pattas. But election works and non availability of proper identification of the land oustees were the main hurdles, the Collectors informed to the RDC.
It needs to be mentioned here that during construction of the Hirakud dam project, 26,501 families and 1.5 lakh people were affected. Since then they are under severe trauma after losing the homes and lands.
The Government had promised to give them suitable compensation apart from resettlement. However, while many influential people got immensely benefitted from the rehabilitation scheme, the innocent and illiterate ones are yet to get a single rupee although they lost everything for the project. The dam was constructed immediately after the country got independence. Further, the issue of compensation to the displaced in the Rourkela steel plant and Rengali dam project also figured in the meeting.