Landowners protest hearing for Dhamra port landacquisition

The

landowners of Dhamra area in Odisha’s Bhadrak district protested the district

land acquisition officials during a public hearing at Dhamra for the additional

land acquisition for Dhamra Port Company Limited (DPCL) on Tuesday.Despite

the protests the hearing was conducted on behalf of the State owned Industrial

Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) under section 5 (a) of the Odisha

land acquisition act.The

IDCO would acquire the land for DPCL for the construction of its township,

water reservoir and extension of existing railway line. Sources said 227.63

acres of land would be acquired in five villages – Oramal, Narasinghaprasad,

Somapatia, Sankhajodi and Gobindapur.Chaos

marred the hearing as over a hundred landowners opposed it demanding higher

price and proper rehabilitation package. Dhamra Krushak Manch president Ananta

Biswal said the landowners who had lost their fertile land for the DPCL’s first

phase project are yet to be rehabilitated as per the commitment made by the

port authority.“The

company cheated us during the first phase. We won’t handover our land for its

township. While the market price of the land would be around Rs 1.5 Cr to Rs 3

Cr per acre, the IDCO is offering us only Rs 2 lakh which is not acceptable,”

he said.      In

the first phase, the port has built two fully mechanised berths with a capacity

of nearly 20 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). In the expansion phase, the port

has a master plan to build 11 more berths, which will increase to port capacity

to nearly 100 MTPA.Admitting

the protests by the landowners, Bhadrak special land acquisition officer

Suryakanta Padhi said the statements of 34 landowners have been recorded. He

was accompanied by sub-collector Rama Chandra Palta and Basudevpur tehsildar

Rajendra Kumar Panda.“The

landowners protested the acquisition process. With the view of the district

collector on the present scenario, a report would be submitted to the State

government soon. It is the government to decide what to do under this

circumstance,” Padhi added.  On

May 5, four officials of the port company and three land acquisition officials

who had gone to Gobindapur village for land survey were detained by the

protesting landowners for over a couple of hours. They were later released. TATA

Steel and Larsen & Toubro hold equal stakes in the Dhamra port project,

which is being developed as the deepest port in the country by the DPCL on a

build own operate share and transfer (BOOST) basis.