Ryots want profits, not compensation

The Sanghatana is currently conducting a series of meetings in Igatpuri taluka to instruct and mobilise the farmers. At one such meeting convened by the sanghatana’s Nashik President, Ramnath Dhikale, farmers were told to refuse the compensation package outright. Chandrakant Gurav was appointed to organise the farmers on the issue. Farmers will also demand developmental rights along the expressway sothat they can open shops and exploit their land commercially.

Gurav told The Indian Express that the proposed expressway would displace about 2,800 farmers who would have to relinquish 3,840 acres for the project. He says the government used to acquire land at a meagre compensation but times have changed and the land is now given to private parties for commercial exploitation at "the cost of sons of the soil".

Also, the Land Acquisition Act is outdated and cannot tackle problems arising out of the government’s Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) policy. As part of the agitation, the Sanghatana will hold a public bonfire and burn a copy of the act in protest. It is also exploring the possibility of forming a farmers’ cooperative, which would stake its claim to execute either a segment or the entire stretch of the expressway on a BOT basis.

Farmers have invariably borne the brunt of such infrastructure projects and the government rarely keeps its promises regarding rehabilitation, Gurav maintained.