The Jagatsinghpur district administration has formed three special teams to remove encroachers from the government land in the Posco project site after paying them compensation as per the provisions of the package announced recently.
The local villagers have mostly built betel vines, prawn ponds and other structures on the government land.
Meanwhile, the district administration issued notification for payment of compensation at three villages, Bayanalkanda, Bhuiyanpal and Nolishai, under Gadkujang panchyat in the first phase. The disbursement of compensation and demolition of betel vines are expected to start from 19 July.
District collector, Narayan Chandra Jena conducted meeting with the district officials on Monday to chalk out plans for payment of compensation and removal of encroachments to facilitate land acquisition for the Posco project.
Out of the three special teams formed to oversee the work, one team comprising additional district magistrate (ADM), Paradip, Sarojkant Chaudhry, sub-collector Murlidhar Mallick and district rehabilitation officer, Surjeet Das will be in overall charge of the operation and monitor the law and order situation during the demolition of betel vines and prawn ponds.
Another team led by tehsildar, Kujang, Basudev Pradhan and tehsildar, Jeevan Mallick will oversee the demolition activities while the third team led by special land acquisition officer, Nrusingh Swain will disburse the compensation amount.
Meanwhile, complains of irregularities in the socio-economic survey of the project site, particularly with respect to exclusion of large number of betel vines in the survey list, has been pouring in with local villagers expressing fears of being left out of the benefits of the compensation package. After the administration received over 400 such complains, it deputed a team led by Kujang tehsildar, Basudev Pradhan to the affected villages on Monday to look into the issue. The administration has decided to include the left out betel vines in survey list after proper field verification.
During the socio-economic survey, a total of 1503 betel vines, operating on an area of 153.40 acres, in Noliashai, Bayanalkanda, Polanga, Nuagaon Gobindpur and Bhuiyanpal villages were identified. However, there were 374 betel vines, covering an area of 50.87 acres, which could not be properly identified as their owners did not come forward to claim the ownership of the property.
