Surat district collector sends proposal to state govt for land acquisition, Khedut Samaj says will oppose move

Sources said that the area between Hazira port (ESSAR port, AM/NS port, Adani port, etc) to Gothan village Railway station, is around 40 kilometers and for that around 575 bigha (around 85 hectares) of land falling in the 14 villages in Choryasi taluka, Olpad taluka and Surat city, will be acquired to develop goods train tracks.

A broad gauge line connectivity already exists between KRIBHCO at Hazira to Gothan Railway station in Olpad, which also connects to Ahmedabad-Mumbai main railway tracks.

Surat district collector Ayush Oak said, “The proposal has been sent to the state government for issuing draft notification of the project. Once we get approval, we will carry out a joint measurement survey and will start acquiring land for the project. Most probably it will take one year to complete the entire procedure. A company which will run this Goods train has been named the Gujarat Rail Infrastructure Development Company, for port connectivity.”

He further added, “The containers and cargos landing at Hazira port are presently using national highway 48 and we want to shift the cargo to DFCC through goods train. There is a major issue of traffic congestion during peak hours. Once the road traffic is diverted to railways, it will also reduce cost and pollution.”

On the existing single goods train track, Oak said, “Presently there is no railway connectivity to the Hazira ports. KRIBHCO company at Hazira has connectivity but not directly to Hazira port. Multinational companies and ports like Adani, ESSAR, AM/NS, etc put in a demand for a railway connectivity.”

However, the farmers of Olpad, Choryasi and Surat are unhappy with such steps taken by the District collector.

Talking to the Indian Express, Khedut Samaj Gujarat president Jayesh Patel said, “Our issue is why the existing railway track cannot be used and why a new railway track has to be made.. Just to give benefit to the three more companies like ESSAR, AM/NS and Adani at Hazira, the government is planning to develop a new railway track. The farmers are unhappy with such movements of agricultural land acquisition.”

He further added, “Out of 14 villages, 11 villages fall in Surat Municipal corporation limit. The Western Railway tracks between Ahmedabad to Mumbai has only two tracks on which over hundreds of trains pass every day. So why should a new railway track be made for the benefit of few companies at Hazira. If there is more traffic on the existing goods track between KRIBHCO and Gothan, they should make siding tracks. We have come to know that twice of jantri rates will be given to the farmers, but we have found that the farmers are still unhappy.”

Patel further added, “In the next couple of days, we have planned to call a meeting of affected farmers and we will definitely oppose such land acquisition.”