CORRIDOR OF DISSENT
Devendra Fadnavis’s dream project of connecting home town Nagpur to Mumbai via a high-speed corridor runs into farmers protesting land acquisition
This project will change the face of Vidarbha and Marathwada.” With this sentence, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis began his speech at a meeting of the state’s top officials in Mumbai in October 2016. He was referring to his ambitious dream project, the Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Way, popularly known as the Samruddhi Corridor, which will connect the two cities with a dedicated 710-kilometre-long expressway going through 352 villages in 10 districts. In acquiring the required 9,154 hectares of land, Fadnavis asked his officials to be fair to farmers in terms of compensation. “Think of it as you selling your [own] property and expecting maximum compensation,” he told them.
The corridor, farmers are being told, will reduce travel time between Nagpur and Mumbai from the existing 14 hours to six, and will help
them get their produce to Jawaharlal Nehru Port for export in the shortest possible time. In addition, the proposed agri-based industries, godowns for produce, cold storage facilities, vegetable shops, 24 smart townships and connectivity to the DelhiMumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) will create better rural infrastructure and generate some 200,000 jobs.
Ironically, however, the corridor has become a rallying point—like the issue of loan waivers—for protesting farmers. Farmers from all 10 districts—Palghar, Thane, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldhana, Washim, Amravati and Nagpur—list similar complaints. They say that there is misinformation on compensation and that forged consent papers are being used for land acquisition, as well as alleging police brutality, ill treatment by government officials and undue favours being extended to politically connected people. Around 4,000 farmer families have united under the banner of the Samruddhi Corridor Sangharsh Samiti. Gram sabhas in 40 per cent of the 352 villages have unanimously passed resolutions opposing land acquisition.
The case of Krishna Mhaske, 30, illustrates how land acquisition will affect farmers. Mhaske grows high-quality grapes on his six-acre farm in Varud, in Maharashtra’s Jalna district. A solar pump and two ponds ensure he’s never short of water and power. The Mhaskes and their two children get a dividend of Rs 12 lakh every year. Now, he says the state government has offered him compensation of Rs 90 lakh (Rs 15 lakh per acre) to surrender his land.
According to the rules, officials from the land acquisition department have to measure the lands of the project-affected
“I should not make absolutely false allegations of cheating and police brutality important by responding to them” DEVENDRA FADNAVIS Maharashtra CM
farmers, including assets such as trees, wells and borewells, and get their signatures to confirm they agree with the assessment. Land acquisition cannot start till such joint measurement is done. But farmers across the state say their consent has not been taken.
Savita Kashivale, a farmer from Chinchvali, Kalyan, alleges the administration forcibly measured her land, bringing in the police. “The police beat us when we tried to stop the measurement process,” she says. “They detained 75 women from our village and made us sit at the police station. They didn’t even offer us water.”
Abdul Majeed Sheikh Sultan from Kachchighati, Aurangabad, even tried to consume poison when government officials landed up with the police to measure his land. His seven-acre farmland, home and brick kiln have been earmarked for acquisition. “Since I tried to commit suicide, they postponed the measurement of my land,” says Sultan, who has a family of 12. “I don’t want to give up my land. The government cheated us. They published the notice in an Urdu newspaper. I can’t read or write Urdu,” he says.
Radheshyam Mopalwar, vicechairman and managing director of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, the nodal agency for the corridor, says farmers’ signatures are not mandatory on the joint measurement papers. “The police were there to protect our staff from social miscreants, not to scare the farmers,” he says. “We have taken action against only those who created hurdles in the process and ransacked our machinery.”
Farmers from several pockets point to the ‘faulty alignment’ of the proposed corridor. Sitaram Dhamne from Chiradpada, Palghar, gets Rs 2,000 daily selling jasmine flowers he grows on his 2.5 acre farm, which has been earmarked for acquisition along with his home. A former employee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, he settled here after retiring in 2006. Pointing to an adjacent patch of barren land, he asks, “Why can’t the government acquire barren land that is easily available? Why does it want my family of 15 to become shelterless?”
Farmers at Palaskhed Malakdev, Buldhana, also complain of the government’s lust for fertile land. This village has been earmarked for an interchange on the corridor from
where motorists can take a turn for south Maharashtra. An interchange is a north-south road intersecting an eastwest one. Almost 80 per cent of the fertile land in this village will be acquired. Ganeshraje Jadhav, the 13th descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s maternal uncle, points to the 1,200 hectares of forest land on the village’s periphery: “It is barren. If the government uses it, the villagers’ fertile lands will be saved.”
Mopalwar disagrees with the farmers’ demand to acquire barren land. “The corridor needs to be straight for it to be practical,” he says. “We can’t change its alignment.” He also rules out the possibility of widening existing highways instead of building a new one, as existing highways have been designed to sustain a speed limit of only 60 km per hour. “The speed limit on the Samruddhi Corridor will be 150 km per hour.” He claims that transport costs will come down due to the higher speed; lower transport cost in turn will help lower the final cost of goods.
Farmers are also unwilling to accept the compensation being offered. H.V. Haygunde, a deputy collector in Aurangabad, says the government will compensate farmers at four times the ready reckoner rates of the land, which is as good as the market rate. However, the farmers are sceptical. “In our area, the government hiked the ready reckoner rates by 25 per cent two years ago,” says Pradeep Deshmukh from Dongaon, Buldhana. “However, since the Samruddhi Corridor has been announced, it has hiked the rates by only six per cent. It shows the government’s intention is suspect.”
Nanasaheb Palaskar from Palshi says farmers do not trust the government because it has ditched them in the past. Talking of land acquired by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) in Chikalthana, Shendra-Bidkin and Walunj in Aurangabad district, he says, “Almost half the land [acquired] in these areas is lying vacant. The MIDC built two shopping malls in Chikalthana and sold it to a businessman.” The government had acquired land at Rs 4,000 per acre in the late 1990s. Now, the rate is Rs 1 crore per acre. “We haven’t yet got compensation for the land acquisition done 25 years ago. How can we trust the government this time?” asks Palaskar.
“No government can pay compensation less than prescribed by law. In this case, it is four times the ready reckoner rate,” says Mopalwar. He alleges that a misinformation campaign is being run among the farmers. A seven-member committee under the district collector has been empowered to fix the compensation rate, he says. Two engineers from the public works and water resources departments as well as a district government pleader are its members. “Do you think the court will not scrutinise their decisions?” Mopalwar asks. He also denies allegations that favours have been extended to politicians and their lands excluded from acquisition. “The site engineers surveying the land do not know the names of the owners,” he says.
The government, on its part, has appointed private communicators in each village affected by the corridor. They have been tasked with convincing land owners to surrender their land for the corridor. These communicators have become the prime targets of angry villagers. “They are misleading us,” says Aniruddha Deshmukh from Dongaon. “They say the government will train us as welders, turners and fitters after we have lost our livelihood as farmers. Why should the farmers’ children do only blue-collar jobs? The CM is shattering our dreams to fulfill his.”
The farmers’ agitation has forced the government to step back on its proposal to build 24 smart cities at the interchanges. So far, it has been able to finalise land for only six cities where it owns land: in Virud, Wardha district; in Savargaonmal, Buldhana district; in Batra and Lasur, Aurangabad district; and in Fugale and Rashiv in Thane.
Fadnavis is determined to go ahead. Six global companies have been appointed to start work. He wants to outdo his fellow competitor from Nagpur, Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister for transport, who is credited with building India’s first expressway between Mumbai and Pune as state PWD minister (1995-99). Fadnavis’s goal is clear. If the corridor is up by 2019, when Maharashtra goes to polls, he’ll be vikas purush,a tag that may help the BJP garner votes in his name.
“We won’t oppose the Samruddhi Corridor just for the sake of opposition, but I’ve noticed the farmers’ plight is not being heard” SHARAD PAWAR NCP chief
“Thousands of farmers don’t want to sell their irrigated land. If you are forcing them to do so anyway, your intentions are wrong” UDDHAV THACKERAY Shiv Sena chief