Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Thursday decided to launch a vigorous agitation “to save the future of Punjab’s two lakh farmers across 19 districts whose lands are being unjustly acquired for peanuts” by the Congress Government for various roads being constructed under the Bharat Mala project.
As a part of the same, the party has decided to hold a massive protest march from Mohali to the Chief Minister’s residence in Chandigarh on September 29 to secure justice for the affected farmer families.
A party delegation will also meet the Punjab Governor on this issue on Friday and submit a memorandum to demand fair compensation for the affected farmers. The decisions were taken after the SAD’s senior leadership, led by party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, met the representatives of the Punjab Pradesh Road Kisan Sangharsh Committee, which has been spearheading the campaign to secure a fair compensation for the affected farmers, to understand the problems being faced by them. Briefing the SAD leadership, the Committee president Sukhdev Singh Dhillon said that the farmers had been short-changed by the Congress Government and were being offered ridiculously low awards averaging Rs 30 to Rs 70 lakh per acre for rural and urban land respectively. They demanded an enhanced compensation of Rs one crore per acre for rural land and Rs three to Rs five crore per acre for urban land being acquired for the road projects.
The Committee also highlighted how 25,000 acres of land were being acquired for the project but another 75,000 acres were rendered useless being small pockets which were left without access and irrigation facilities.
“More than 3,000 houses would be demolished and villages would lose 100 village ponds. One crore trees would be felled under the project and hundreds of factories, shellers, poultry farmers, brick kilns, and dairy farms would be uprooted,” they informed adding that some areas in Kapurthala, Moga, Ludhiana, Moga, Bathinda, and Fatehgarh Sahib would witness flood like conditions due to stoppage of the natural flow of water due to construction of the new roads.
The major roads slated to come up in the State as part of the Bharat Mala project include the Delhi – Jammu- Katra expressway, Jamnagar – Amritsar expressway, Ludhiana – Ropar road, Amritsar – Una road and Mohali –Fatehgarh Sahib besides other short stretches including bye pass connections.