Joda/Champua: Land of some tribals has been acquired for Kanpur major irrigation project at Kainta village under Champua tehsil in Keonjhar. But for the last 10 years, the land losers have been complaining that they have not yet received their compensation. “Though we have been drawing attention of the authorities concerned, the latter are paying no heed to our complaints,” some villagers lamented. Reports said, tribal residents like Jagannath Tiria, Narayan Tiria and Atmi Tiria had 40 decimal of land (khata-161/37 and plot 60/2245) at Raveshawpur (A). This patch of land had been acquired 10 years ago for the Kanpur irrigation project. A canal is being excavated on their land. The land losers had first apprised the special land acquisition officer about the pending compensation in May, 2016.
“Though we have been reminding the officer and the administration to pay our compensation, no step is being taken in this direction even after 10 years,” they rued. They also pointed out that as per provision in the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2006, the families facing displacement more than once are entitled to get usual financial compensation along with an additional 50 percent compensation amounts. “But this provision has been thrown to the winds here in our case. We had been displaced earlier.
Again we had to lose our land. This provision should be applied in our case,” said Jagannath Tiria. The land losers sought to know why the project authorities are sitting pretty without paying compensation after acquiring the land. They urged the state government to pay heed to their problem.