Mamata Banerjee as the Indian Railway Minister with the financial assistance of Japan has decided to accelerate the western and eastern Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) along its busy trunk routes to augment the transport capacity and meet the growing requirements of moving freight.
(1) The western Delhi-Mumbai DFC covering 1,483-km through Delhi, National Capital Region (NCR), Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra at a cost of Rs.26, 124 crores will stretch from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in Navi Mumbai to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh on the national capital's outskirts covering Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
High fertile farming land falling in villages of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra are covered under western corridor project.
Another project, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor will also be developed simultaneously through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) along with the freight corridor.
The Railway Ministry expects to complete both the freight corridor and the industrial corridor by 2013.
(2) The eastern DFC will extend 1,806 km from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Kolkata. It will be extended in future to serve the new deep-sea port in the Kolkata area and to largely serve coal and steel traffic. Here also fertile 3-crop/4-crop land will be acquired for the purpose.
The railways need to acquire 12,500 hectares over 51 districts in seven states for the proposed eastern and western freight corridor projects. The railways are demanding 42 per cent more 3-crop/4-crop fertile farming land for the project than what was previously envisaged. This is in sharp contrast to the earlier estimate of 8,833 hectares.
The railways have prepared land acquisition plans for 2,200 km. It has already issued a gazette notification for acquisition of 3-crop/4-crop high fertile farming land in villages of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra covering a stretch of 1,077 km.
By the end of January 2009, the railways will be able to acquire nearly 100 km near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. The remaining areas will be acquired over six months.
The Railway Ministry on September 29, 2008 had published a notification declaring its intention to acquire 3-crop/4-crop fertile farming lands in Gujarat for execution, maintenance, management and operation of special rail corridor project following which farmers losing their 3-crop/4-crop fertile farming lands in these villages had raised about 1301 objections.
A year later on September 15, 2009, the government published a Notification stating that it has acquired 700 hectares of 3-crop/4-crop fertile farming land in 31 villages in three talukas and Vadodara city of Gujarat for the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor Project.
Farmers and sharecroppers in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have started agitation against the acquisition of highly fertile agriculture land for the proposed Freight Corridor.
They have suggested redesigning of the routes for sparing valuable 3-crop/4-crop fertile farming lands from acquisition and said the compensation package offered to these farmers in lieu of their 3-crop/4-crop fertile farming land was very less and not acceptable to them. The Railways have taken away their fertile farming land at throw away prices and rendered them jobless.
The farmers of Chandauli district in Uttar Pradesh under the banner of Krishi Bhoomi Bachao Sangharsh Samiti and Satya Foundation (SF) have started agitation against the acquisition of their fertile farming land for the proposed freight corridor of Indian Railways.
It was seen that during Singur and Nandigram episodes, all the opposition political parties including TMC, Congress, BJP, SUCI, Maoists and Naxalites had not only supported the violent agitation of Mamata Banerjee in the name of saving fertile agricultural land but also actively participated in the same. Besides, Mahasweta Devi and other ‘pseudo’ intellectuals and ‘so-called’ human rights activists had day and night campaigned vociferously against the Left Front Government and helped the agitators and goons in all possible ways to sabotage the industrial resurgence. Shri Lal Krishna Advani, Shri Amar Singh and other leaders of anti-Leftist national political parties had regularly been to Nandigram and Singur to add fuel to fire by expressing their solidarity with Mamata Banerjee and the agitators.
As a result, dreams of two major projects have been shattered. Opposition to government intervention in land acquisition helped Mamata Banerjee gain enormous political mileage, but it has left industry in West Bengal with Hobson’s choice
It is an irony that the same Mamata Banerjee has been now engaged in acquiring forcibly most fertile lands in seven states for Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors despite stiff and vehement opposition from the landowners and farmers. But the said political parties, national leaders, ‘pseudo’ intellectuals, Maoists, Naxalites and ‘so-called’ human rights activists are shamelessly silent on the matter. Nobody has yet met the affected farmers to give a patient hearing to them and address their grievances.
There cannot be separate rules for separates states in this country on acquisition of land. But yes, there is. Strange is the politics in this country.
The fact is that all forces ranging from ultra leftists to ultra rightists including those of communal, imperialist, finance capital and a section of media have ganged up with one and only aim to dislodge the Left Front Government anyway and at any cost. They donot abide by any logic, reason or fact. They with their obligation to imperialism went against all norms of civilized political behaviour and supported TMC which is nothing but a nuisance to Indian Politics dominated by one eccentric person devoid any ideology or policy
There is no denying the fact that hundreds of farmers have already committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and other states. Thousands and thousands acres of fertile land has been acquired under duress in many states for industries and other developmental works depriving the farmers of their landed property. But none of the saviors of tribals, peasants and the underprivileged are seen in the picture to express their solidarity with the deprived. Is it not ambivalence?
The double standard, fraudulency and duplicity maintained by political frauds, perverted intellectuals and foreign funded human rights activists are nothing but mockery of democracy, integrity, transparency and honesty. These people stand exposed today. History will judge judiciously these swindlers working on the pay roll of imperialists, foreign finance capital and big business houses in the days to come and throw them into dustbin.
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