Chandigarh: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann in his reply to Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari has blamed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the delay in land acquisition and said that the two incidents of threats and violence stemmed from causes attributable to its concessionaire/contractor.
Gadkari had written to Mann on August 9 raising concerns over threats and incidents of violence with the contractors and staff of national highway authority of India (NHAI) and demanding stern action against the perpetrators. He had also pointedly cautioned the Punjab government that NHAI will have no other option but to terminate eight more severely affected projects spanning 293 km and costing Rs 14,288 crore if the law and order situation does not improve.
Replying to the Central minister, Mann in his letter sent on Tuesday, said that the state government has been proactively supporting NHAI in land acquisition and other related matters and this is the reason, that barring a few exceptions, most of the NHAI projects in the state are on track.
The chief minister said that in both the cases referred by Gadkari, the local police promptly registered FIRs under relevant provisions of law and arrests have been made. He held that during investigation it has been found that one incident was the outcome of over excavation of land by NHAI concessionaire/contractor and the second incident was the outcome of non-payment of financial dues by the concessionaire/contractor to its sub-contractor.
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He said that as far as land acquisition related issues are concerned, the Union minister must appreciate that farmers of the state are deeply attached to their land, for it being their main source of livelihood so farmers are reluctant to part with their lands, if they feel that the compensation is not adequate.
However, he bemoaned that NHAI chose to challenge the arbitrator's award or took inordinately long time in accepting the award due to which the acquisition process was delayed. Mann held that there are a number of cases in which possession of land was given to NHAI, but its contractors took a long time in mobilising their machinery and starting the work due to which the farmers started cultivating the land again.
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