Alleges that Govt patronising land touts, exploiting tribals
Former leader of opposition at state Assembly and senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma on Tuesday informed that touts had illegally bought about 600 acres agricultural land from tribals for RKM Powergen Private Limited (RKMPPL) at Janjgir-Champa district violating norms.
“This is a glaring example of government patronisation to the land touts with apparent motive to benefit the industrialists and exploit the poor tribals,” alleged Karma.
The RKMPPL is establishing 1440 MW power plant at village Ucchpinda in Janjgir-Champa. Karma informed that about 50 acre agricultural land was illegally acquired by the company through one Ramlal Gond (village Bandhapali, Janjgir-Champa).
“Gond himself is a poor tribal who cannot even buy one acre land. The power plant industries are adopting similar method to acquire agricultural lands in the state. If the RKMPPL can rope in Gond to buy 50 acre land then it might have hired many more touts to buy the remaining 550 acre land,” he said.
The company bought lands in Ucchpinda, Givra, Kanhakot, Bandhapali and Dhobripali villages.
“Moreover, the lands worth crores were purchased at extremely low rates. The actual cost of the land was about Rs 10 lakh per acre but the RKMPPL acquired lands at the rate of Rs one lakh per acre. This is sheer conspiracy to exploit tribals and the government is responsible for it,” he said.
“In four years of its existence in Janjgir-Champa, the company never create jobs for the tribals from whom it acquired lands,” he added.
He said the government had framed rules for tribal land purchase for commercial purpose.
“To provide tribal lands to public or private players to establish industries, first the Revenue department acquires lands from tribals and then allocates to the eligible industrialists. In case of RKMPPL, the lands were acquired ignoring rules,” he said.
He demanded from Chief Minister and Revenue Minister to instantly take action against the company by instructing it to either return the acquired lands to tribals or to give them actual rates of the lands.
He further demanded from the government to disclose the number of affected people being recruited by the private industries against acquiring their lands. He said the government should direct the private industries to issue list of affected people whom they gave jobs.
He also said that the government must also open large number of technical training institutions having different discipline so that the local could undergo training programmes and obtain employment in private industries being setup in the state.
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