Sambalpur: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has launched the process of land acquisition for the construction of a necklace road around Sambalpur town.
The four-lane necklace road to be constructed at an expense of Rs 1,000 crore will start from Goshala, Katapali on NH-53 and and run via Maneswar, Jayantpur, Kabrapali, to connect at Biju Expressway at Sasan.
The NHAI has also issued notice to the concerned landowners for acquisition of their land under Section 3(A) of the Land Acquisition Act.
As per norms, the status of land cannot be changed in the concerned area after the notification for land acquisition. The notice debars the land owners from building any new structure or further construction on their land identified for acquisition. In case of any urgency, the concerned land owner has to obtain the permission of the district Collector before carrying out any new construction.
However, the rules have been completely violated here. Some unscrupulous land owners are going against the rules and constructing houses on the identified land to grab hefty compensation. They are not alone in this move and carrying out the house construction in connivance with some unscrupulous revenue officials, land agents and brokers. Several complaints have been lodged with the authorities but their pleas are yet to be addressed.
The concerned land owners are even threatening the people who dare to lodge complaint against them. They claim to be constructing the house after a discussion with revenue officials.
Earlier, reports of similar misappropriation in land acquisition for construction of National Highway-55 had appeared in various media following which the concerned company had to return Rs 23 lakh towards compensation to the state government.
Moreover, examples of people illegally constructing houses on the land identified for acquisition and grabbing government money under various pretexts is not new. Locals have alleged that if immediate steps are not taken by the government officials then there is no way they can stop such loot of government funds.
According to reports, the Land Acquisition department has published notifications in various newspapers and issued notice to the concerned villages for construction of necklace road in the town from the month of July.
The notification contains the details of the land identified for acquisition like plot number, mouza number, khata number and the amount of land to be acquired for the project in the concerned area. The department has also specifically issued notices to some land owners.
After receiving the notice, land owners have started constructing houses on the land identified for acquisition. They are engaging masons and labourers from West Bengal and Bihar and constructing houses on a war footing. Many land owners have already completed house construction on the identified land while work on other houses is underway.
They are constructing houses with a hope and plan to grab more compensation.
Nageshwar Rao, project director, NHAI said that a GPS and spot survey as well as videography and photography has been done on the identified land. The houses which will be built after the date of issuance of notice can be identified and the district administration has been earlier informed to keep a tab of such construction and stop them.
Land Acquisition Officer Saroj Mishra said all surveys have been completed before the issuance of notice. No one has been debarred to construct a house but they will not be given a penny, he added.
PNN