New Delhi: Scores of farmers from Uttar Pradesh, who were agitating near the DND flyway for enhanced compensation in lieu of their land acquired before 2013, ended their protest on Saturday after authorities assured them in writing.
The Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) flyway, a crucial route connecting UP and Delhi, was shut briefly on Friday evening as farmers from western UP districts protested there, throwing traffic movement out of gear.
The farmers, numbering around 500 from Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, and Meerut, had stayed put until Saturday afternoon. Many of them were women from villages with their heads covered. They had their hands raised and tied with a piece of cloth in a symbolic gesture expressing helplessness.
“The protest got over around 2.30 pm and farmers vacated the spot,” senior SP (Gautam Budh Nagar) Vaibhav Krishna said. “They agreed to leave after they got an assurance in writing from the district magistrate. They have been assured of a meeting in a week with local authorities, like the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), over their grievances,” he said.
Earlier on Saturday, the farmers and their leader Manveer Teotia had declined talking to city magistrate Shailendra Mishra and SP (Traffic) Anil Kumar Jha. Mr Teotia said that farmers in Tappal, Mathura, and Aligarh have been protesting for two years over “irregularities” in land acquisition between 2008 and 2012, but the state government has “not listened” to their requests.
He said that the farmers wanted local authorities and administrations to take up the matter with UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath. However, nothing fruitful has happened so far, hence the protest.
Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate B.N. Singh met the farmers on Saturday morning and assured them that he would take up the matter with the state government. Reportedly, two policemen and two farmers were killed in clashes in May 2011 following protests over acquisition of land in Greater Noida’s Bhatta Parsaul, the Jat-dominated village which had become the epicentre of protests for land acquisitions in the country.
Two years since that upheaval, the country got the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehab-ilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (also known as the Land Acquisition Act, 2013).
The new law was aimed at providing “fair compensation” to those whose land was taken away, bring transparency to the process of acquisition of land to set up factories or buildings, infrastructure projects, and assure rehabilitation of those affected.
