Punjab questions Centre ‘warning’ to scrap road projects over ‘law, order’, says ‘just listen to the farmers’

While the Centre has withheld funds for Punjab for its other schemes earlier, this one hurts the Mann government as it takes a hit at the state’s “law and order”, allowing other Opposition parties to join in.

The BJP has said that cancellation of the highway projects would be “a big blow” to Punjab, and pointed out that as Home Minister, Mann was himself responsible for the law and order situation. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal has accused Mann of “compromising the state’s development”.

The AAP has called Gadkari’s warning another attempt by the BJP to malign the state government. “I want to tell Gadkari to look at the latest NCRB (National Crimes Record Bureau) report. Punjab’s law and order situation is better than the neighbouring BJP-led states… They just want to create a situation which does not exist because they want to scrap the projects,” AAP spokesperson Neel Garg said.

He added that the protests hindering the highway projects were the Centre’s doing. “What is the law and order issue in this?” Garg said. “Farmers do not want to give up their land because the Centre does not listen to them. They have been agitating but they were not allowed to proceed. What do you expect?”

Gadkari’s letter followed two recent incidents on the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway project, in Jalandhar and Ludhiana. The Union minister wrote: “In one incident in Jalandhar district, the engineer of the contractor was brutally assaulted. Though an FIR has been registered in this regard, strong action is required to be taken.”

About the Ludhiana district, Gadkari wrote that the project camp of the contractor of the Delhi-Katra Expressway was attacked by miscreants and the engineers were threatened that their staff would be burnt alive. “However, an FIR has still not been filed and miscreants have not been arrested despite written requests by NHAI officials,” he wrote.

Sources in CM Mann’s office, however, said it was wrong to blame either of the incidents on the state government.

An official said that the Jalandhar issue arose due to the contractor’s men digging the acquired land below the permissible 2-metre depth, causing the adjacent land to sink. “The affected party told the contractor, but he did not heed the request. Hence the confrontation took an ugly turn,” the official said, adding that the Ludhiana case involved the supply of fly ash to a contractor, for which payment was not made to the dealer.

“None of these incidents are about farmers not allowing the NHAI to construct highways in Punjab,” the official said, adding that the Punjab government has acquired at least 70% of the land for the projects. “A few patches are left. The major part where land could not be acquired is not on the main highway but the side roads. The CM will inform Gadkari about this,” the official said.

Government sources said that the main hurdle was that farmers were not happy about the compensation being offered to them for their land. “Farmer unions are also playing their part and provoking the farmers. We are working on that too,” said the official. “Land acquisition is a massive process. One cannot acquire land overnight. We are on it.”

The compensation is fixed by the district collector concerned after taking into consideration the land prices in the area. Hence, the price varies from district to district, and rural to urban areas. The compensation is paid then by the authorities, in this case the NHAI or Centre.

Only recently, three highway projects of 104-km length, worth Rs 3,263 crore, were cancelled after farmers did not give their land for acquisition.

Tejveer Singh, the spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Shaheed Bhagat Singh),, said they want the farmers to be compensated as per the earlier rule, which provided for four times the rate set by the collector. Under the new rules, this is two-and-a-half times the rate.

Sources said the government would also urge the Centre to start construction activity wherever land has been acquired as otherwise it often gets encroached upon.

Another official said one reason for the delay in land acquisition in some parts was the model code of conduct during the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year. “We saw the code of conduct in implementation for three months, from April till June 1, as polling was in the last phase in Punjab. The Election Commission told us not to hold any meetings… Now, we are holding a meeting once every week.”

Earlier, the Centre withheld Rural Development Fund (RDF) worth Rs 6,767 crore, allocation under the National Health Mission worth Rs 1,000 crore, funds under the Samgara Shiksha Abhiyan worth Rs 900 crore, and special assistance worth Rs 1,100 crore over various reasons, including naming of the schemes.

Badal said the AAP government was not just “compromising Punjab’s development” but also “endangering its future generations by wilfully neglecting to acquire land for the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway (one of the projects mentioned by Gadkari)”. Badal also demanded that the farmers get compensation as per their demands, and accused the CM of avoiding meeting those protesting for a fair price, exacerbating their anger.

BJP leader Subhash Sharma said the state government should leave all other non-essential work and first focus on the highway projects, adding that the Centre wants to have “rivers of development” flowing in Punjab.

Tejveer Singh said the Centre was just trying to twist their arms. “It is a lie that they will scrap the projects. How will they take traffic from Delhi to Katra then? By air?… They just need to listen to the farmers… We also want them to leave areas with orchards and heritage trees… In some cases, farmers are agitated as their land is getting split due to the highway, and some have to travel up to 50 km to access the other part,” Singh said.