Who’s encroaching? Noida eyes the Yamuna floodplain
Noida eyes the Yamuna floodplain
About 1,000 migrants lost their livelihood when their huts and crops on the Yamuna floodplain near the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border were razed in December. The Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department carried out the operation on a 25-hectare (ha) patch of the floodplain at Nayabaans village in Noida so that it can transfer the land to Noida for development.
The settlers were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They grew vegetables, flowers, wheat and rice on the land rented from people who once held land lease given by the irrigation department. Pappu of Kaimur district in Bihar had rented about 6 ha at Nayabaans close to the Okhla Bird Park and DND flyway for Rs 6,000 per hectare for a year. While he farmed, his younger siblings studied in a makeshift school. He lost his month-old vegetable crop and has nowhere to go.
“They just came in the evening and trampled all over the vegetables and flooded the fields. Had they at least given us a notice we would not have sown crops. I had invested Rs 15,000-20,000 on wheat.”
said Sauraj Singh Kashyap of Hapur in Uttar Pradesh. H C Malhotra, a member of literacy organization Gyan Jyoti Vidyalaya, which set up the makeshift school in the area, said “These people have not made permanent structures on the riverbed. They were merely making a living out of agriculture.” Continue reading »
Filed under Delhi, India, News, Rivers | Tags: Agriculture, Delhi, Development, Farmers, Infrastructure Development, Irrigation, Land, Land Encroachments, Land Use, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, Yamuna | Comment (0)Bail industry out – CII wants government to reconsider land acquisition bill.
CII wants government to reconsider land acquisition bill.
THE Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has opposed the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2007 likely to be tabled in the next session of Parliament. The CII in a press release said it wants the government to reconsider the bill that mandates industries to acquire land on their own from farmers. According to the bill, the government will acquire only 30 per cent land and that too after the private sector acquires 70 per cent of the site allotted for industrial projects.
This will make it difficult for industry to set up projects, CII said. Assembling land from numerous owners is not a task which the corporate sector can undertake effectively. The government should retain its role of acquiring land for industrial development, as industrialization is key to job creation, CII said.
It further said that the clause ‘public purpose’ should empower the state to acquire land not only for infrastructure or defence purposes but also for developing land for economic activity. Continue reading »
Filed under Environment | Tags: Benefit Sharing, Farmers, India, Industry, Land, Land Acquisition, Land Ownership, Ministry Of Rural Development, Parliament | Comment (0)