Jharkhand MLAs raise concern over displacement of people

Cutting across party lines, Jharkhand Legislators today expressed concern in the Assembly over issues regarding displacement and sought setting up of a commission or committee or both to rehabilitate and resettle the displaced people.
Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) Legislature party leader Pradip Yadav said it was the responsibility of the government to take back the unused land of corporates and return those to farmers as the poor could not take on the corporate sector in courts.
The compensation in lieu of the land should be in proportion to the amount of deposits of coal or any other minerals underground, he said.

Yadav also sought setting up a Commission on Resettlement and Rehabilitation and a House Committee for the benefit of the families affected or facing displacement.
JMM MLA and former minister Champai Soren sought to know who were the beneficiaries of Chandil Dam project, which had affected 116 villages.
"Tribals depend on agriculture. If they are driven away from their land they would feel like fish out of water," Soren said, adding tribal tradition, culture and customs were at stake following displacement.

He demanded that a House Committee be set up to find out who had been the real beneficiaries after building of dams.

BJP Legislator Shiv Shankar Oraon suggested sending a team to Andhra Pradesh to study the displacement issue there as that state has embarked upon constructing a new capital while another MLA from the same party Raj Sinha said Dhanbad faced the possibility of displacement of one lakh people.
Nine big dams were constructed in Jharkhand displacing many families, "but farmers are not getting water", Jai Bharat Samanta Party MLA Gita Koda said.
R K Yadav of CPI (ML-Liberation) said, a House Committee be set up to survey the displaced so that a decision could be taken on the basis of the report.