SAD to protest 'low' compensation for land acquired for road projects

The SAD on Thursday said it will hold a massive protest march on September 29 against Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi over the issue of farmers' land being acquired for “peanuts” for various road projects.

A party delegation will also meet the Punjab governor over this issue on Friday and submit a memorandum demanding fair compensation for the affected farmers, a statement issued by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) said.

The SAD has decided to hold a massive protest march from Mohali to the chief minister's residence in Chandigarh to “secure justice” for the affected farmer families, it said.

These decisions were taken after the senior SAD leadership, led by party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, met representatives of the Punjab Pradesh Road Kisan Sangharsh Committee, which has been spearheading the campaign to secure a fair compensation for affected farmers.

Briefing the SAD leadership, committee president Sukhdev Singh Dhillon said the farmers had been “short changed” by the Congress government and were being offered ridiculously low awards averaging Rs 30 lakh and Rs 70 lakh per acre for rural and urban land respectively, and demanded an enhanced compensation of Rs 1 crore per acre for rural land and Rs 3-5 crore per acre for urban land being acquired for the road projects.

The major roads slated to come up in the state as part of the Bharatmala Pariyojana include the Delhi-Jammu-Katra expressway, Jamnagar-Amritsar expressway, Ludhiana-Ropar road, Amritsar-Una road and the Mohali-Fatehgarh Sahib road.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)