Chandrapur, In some villages of Korpana tehsil, the fraud of forcibly buying tribal land and handing it over to the cement industry has come to the fore in order to meet the land required for limestone quarrying for a cement industry under construction.
There are also angry cases of tribal farmers who are not ready to sell their land, or have taken a loan on their land, paying the debt of such farmers, their lands with the help of revenue officials are also being varied.
Village Parsodi of Korpana Tehsil, Govindpur, Kothoda Bu. Farmers of villages like Kothoda Khurd etc. exposed this hoax here today. In this context, he met the District Magistrate and clarified his grievance to him and apprised him of the injustice being done to him.
According to the information given by the farmers to the District Magistrate, RCCPL Mukutban, which takes production of MP Birla Cement in village Mukutban of Wani tehsil of Yavatmal district, is currently under construction. For limestone quarrying for this industry, land adjoining 3 other villages including village Parsodi of Korpana tehsil has been found on lease. This lease process was completed on 5th August.
On September 22, a public hearing was also taken by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board and RCCPL in the District Magistrate’s office to inform about the lease being given to this industry.
The villagers of village Parsodi allege that, this public hearing was just a sham, the people involved in this public hearing had no relation with the project-affected villages. He was included in the public hearing by giving the names of the residents of Parsodi, bogus email IDs were made in his name, and the signatures against his name were also fake.
The villagers allege that these fake people were presented by 2 touts. He alleged that both these brokers are doing the work of forcibly buying the lands of the tribals of the four surrounding villages including village Parsodi, this work is going on for the last 3 years. This land is being bought by luring people, in return for the price of the land, they are giving only seven, eight lakh rupees per acre to the farmers. The same land is being sold by the brokers to the under-construction cement company at the rate of Rs 15 lakh per acre.
Farmers say that this scam is going on in the connivance of some officers working in the revenue department of the cement industry, district administration. The farmers who are not ready to sell their land, their land is being varied with the connivance of the revenue officials, the names of the farmers are being removed from the seven Bara certificates. The names of the farmers, who have taken loans on their land, are being removed from Saat Bara by repayment of their loans.
Farmers say that all this is being done to avoid the process of land acquisition so that the land is available to the industry at cheap prices and in return the industry does not have to give any employment to the land holder.
Villagers told that, village Parsodi and the four surrounding villages come under the purview of PESA law, if any industry wants to acquire the land of such villages, it has to be done under the Larra Act of 2013, the market value of the land acquired under this act. It is mandatory to pay three times the price. To avoid all this, taking undue advantage of the illiteracy of the villagers, the work of forcibly grabbing the land of the farmers is going on here by the industry itself through touts. The villagers disclosed that till now, the brokers have bought 160 acres of land in village Parsodi and four surrounding villages from the farmers.
Ramchandra Sidam, Sachin Sidam, Yashwant Sidam, Pitamber Sidam, Ramesh Sidam, Nitesh Kotnake, Sonarao Pawar, Raju Atram, Arjun Madavi, Prakash Atram were included in the delegation of villagers led by Dhanraj Kove, Gangadhar Kuntawar and Arun Madamwar. . The villagers have requested the District Magistrate not to allow the mining operation to start in this area without completing the entire acquisition process of the land leased to the cement industry.