Farmer protests halt Katesar land acquisition

Following protests by farmers in Katesar village of Chandauli district against land acquisition by Varanasi Development Authority to develop a cultural city along the Ganga,the government has decided to postpone the acquisition for the time being.

Written by Express News Service
Lucknow | May 30, 2011 02:26 AM IST

3 min read

Following protests by farmers in Katesar village of Chandauli district against land acquisition by Varanasi Development Authority to develop a cultural city along the Ganga,the government has decided to postpone the acquisition for the time being. The decision was taken on Sunday evening after a group of farmers blocked Mirzapur-Sonebhadra highway.

We are not going to take any land without the consent of the landowner. There will be no forcible acquisition of land and we have assured the farmers of this, said Vijay Kumar Tripathi,District Magistrate of Chandauli.

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The farmers,who have been sitting on dharna in Katesar village for about a week,wanted the district magistrate to visit them and make a promise. The district magistrate had called a representative of farmers to a guest house in Mugalsarai but we refused as we did not want a repeat of Bhatta-Parsaul,where the government had created a divide among the farmers. We asked the DM to come to this place,where we are staging our dharna,and talk to all the representatives here, said Shesh Nath,one of the farmer leaders who is the district president of Bharatiya Kisan Union.

Asked about their demands,Nath said,The government wants to acquire about 121 hectares in Katesar for the Varanasi Development Authority,but we just do not wish to part with our fertile land. They can do the development on the barren land if they want.

The project to develop a cultural city along the Ganga at the Varanasi-Chandauli border was conceptualised in 2008. The proposed cultural city will have museums,private universities and complex promoting the art and culture of the region. The notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act,earmarking about 121 hectares in Katesar area for the first phase of the project,was done in June 2010. While the farmers had been voicing their concern since the very beginning,they started a dharna at the site on April 25.

They suspended the dharna on May 6 following an assurance that the land would not be acquired forcefully. However,the farmers alleged that irrespective of the assurance,the district administration took out another notification to proceed with the acquisition. Therefore,they started the dharna again about a week ago.