Amid debates on land acquisition for industrial use, the state government today said that it can acquire land of scheduled tribes or adivasis in scheduled areas for development projects.
Replying to a call attention motion raised by Congress MLAs Panchilal Meda, Tejilal Saryam and Omkar Singh Markam in state assembly today, the revenue minister Karan Singh Verma said, “Provisions of Land acquisition Act 1894 does not bar the government from acquiring adivasi land for development projects.”
The state government has acquired land in Pushpraj Garh, Anuppur, Jaithari and Kotma tehsil areas; 1089 acres for Moser Baer, 819 acres of Newzone India and 768 acres for Welspun Energy.
The MLAs raised an issue that the government has allegedly acquired lands of tribal people by putting rules and regulations aside in favour of power companies namely Moser Bear, Welspun Energy, Prakash Industries, and Newzone India in scheduled areas of Anuppur.
“Legally the government has no right to acquire land of adivasis or tribal people in scheduled areas. The Anuppur district is a scheduled district and land acquisition will affect the culture, traditions and privacy of people. The government is acting as an agent of these companies,” alleged Bisahu Lal, an ex minister and sitting MLA of Congress. He also questioned that when a non-tribal cannot acquire land of a tribal in scheduled area, how can the state government acquire the land in favour of these non-tribal companies
Also, the government has not given them land for land of adequate compensation of Rs 5 lakh per acre as assured by state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
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The MLAs has also raised the issue of compensation which was a meagre Rs 15000 per acre paid to only 170 families out of a total 207 affected tribal families that too without the mandatory provisions of consent from Gram Sabha.
“The district collector is expected to take the consent of local gram sabhas and villagers. Legally he should be present during the meeting with the villagers but in a number of cases the collector and government officials do not attend any meeting or seek villagers’ consent,” alleged another MLA, Omkar Singh.
In his reply the minister said that only 170 adivasi members accepted the compensation, the rest 37 refused due to family dispute. However, he refused to reply as to why the government has acquired land without taking consent of the gram sabhas, but assured of investigation of the matter.