Noida, Nov 7 (PTI) Hundreds of villagers impacted by the development of Noida International Airport at Jewar staged a protest in Greater Noida on Monday, seeking enhanced compensation over the acquisition of their land by the Uttar Pradesh government.
The protestors, who were also joined by members of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), gathered at the Zero Point in Greater Noida, where several officials of the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration and the Yamuna Expressway Authority, besides the police, also reached in a bid to pacify them.
Pawan Khatana, a regional leader of the BKU, said the protest was held not only for increased compensation to the villagers whose land is being acquired for the upcoming airport, but also those whose land has been acquired in the past by local authorities.
“After today’s protest, we have been assured of meetings with the district administration and the local authorities from November 9-19 where our issues and demands would be discussed. After that we will once again hold a meeting among ourselves on November 20 to decide the future course of action,” Khatana told PTI.
The major protest came at a time when the process for acquisition of land for the second phase development of the airport is underway for which 1,365 hectare land is to be acquired from six villages — Ranhera, Kureb, Dayanatpur, Karauli Bangar, Mundrah and Birampur.
Of these, residents of Ranhera and Kureb will have to be completely resettled and rehabilitated (R&R) in a new location, said Amit Kumar Singh, a protestor.
“One of our major demands is that we should be relocated to Modal Pur on the Jewar-Khurja route, which is nine km from our current location, instead of the proposed R&R site at Falaida-Bangar cut, which will be over 30 km away,” Singh, a resident of Ranhera, said.
He said relocating thousands of people to Falaida-Bangar would mean difficulty in accessing other nearby places where they have cultivated social relations since a long time.
“We are also demanding that proper facilities should be developed at the R&R site as mentioned in the law and assured by officials. We are apprehensive about it since the people who were resettled at Jewar Bangar after the first phase of land acquisition are still facing several problems there,” he claimed.
Notably, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had met with a group of around 200 villagers from these villages last month in Lucknow along with local Jewar MLA Dhirendra Singh.
The chief minister had announced a hike in monetary compensation to the villagers whose land is being acquired and had assured considering their other demands, too, while making an emotional appeal for their support for the airport’s construction.
Officials of the district administration and the local authorities said they have forwarded the demands of the protestors to officers concerned and they would be taken into consideration.
A district administration official said, “Currently, the process is underway for taking consent of the land owners. The demands of the protestors have been forwarded to senior officers and further decision on it would be taken soon.” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Abhishek Verma said there was no law and order situation due to the protest.
“The situation remained under control and the protestors had dispersed by evening,” Verma told PTI.
According to an official, the Noida International Airport is being developed in four phases by the Switzerland-based concessionaire Zurich International Airport AG’s special purpose vehicle Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL). In the first phase, which is scheduled to be completed by September 2024, operations will begin with one runway and a capacity of handling 1.20 crore passengers annually by then.
The second phase will be spread over 1,300 hectare, according to the official.
The airport is billed to be India’s largest airport upon full completion in the 2040s. It will be spread over an area of 5,000 hectare and estimated to cost Rs 29,560 crore, according to the project official. PTI KIS TDS TDS
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