KAPURTHALA, July 28: Resentment prevails among the farmers of village Mansoorwal, Nurpur and Dhuankhs Jagir, whose lands have been acquired by the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) for the construction of urban estate, over the demand of at Rs 20,000 per acre allegedly by the officials of land acquisition department for releasing the payment for their acquired land.More than 100 villagers, who were today waiting outside civil rest house where the officials of land acquisition department were distributing the cheques, told mediapersons that they had been waiting for their turn for the past two days but only those persons, who were ``greasing their palms''were getting the payments.They said that they had already been uprooted by the government with the acquisition of their land and they could not afford to pay the illegal gratification for the release of payment.Chanan Singh, Gurmit Singh, Kashmiri Lal, Nand Singh and Sundri, all residents of Mansoorwal Dona alleged that the ``middle men'' of the land acquisition department were demanding Rs 20,000 per acre from them for the release of cheques.When the mediapersons contacted land acquisition collector P.S. Sodhi in the rest house, he denied all the allegations and said the payment of 36 persons whose land belonged to the society could not be made as some of the persons had obtained stay from civil court for not releasing the payment.He said department had released payment of Rs 24 crore out of the total payment of Rs 32 crore so far. He said the possession of land to the PUDA would be handed over by the month of a September this year. PUDA has acquired 205 acres of land for the construction of urban estate in the town.Action demandedKapurthala Central Cooperative Bank Employees Union today demanded stern action against the persons, who attacked and made an attempt to abduct Kuldip Singh, deputy manager of the Ropar branch of Bank on Friday evening.
