Land acquisition pace up after enhanced compensation: Gadkari

The pace of land acquisition for highway projects has jumped manifold after enhanced compensation with the new law proving a boon in disguise, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today said.
"People are queuing up to offer their land for highway projects after enhanced compensation. In fact enhanced compensation in the RFCTLARR Act has proved a boon in disguise," Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Gadkari said at Budget Aaj Tak programme here.
He said with the pace of acquisition gaining momentum, projects were being implemented in full swing.
Even farmers who had parted with their land for the projects earlier are to get enhanced compensation under the new land acquisition law in case they are yet to be compensated under the old legislation.

Gadkari said in rural areas the farmers were getting four times of the earlier compensation while in urban areas it was twice of the previous fixed compensation.
The move will lead to rolling out projects worth crore of rupees embroiled in about 2,000 cases.

The ministry has directed NHAI, NHIDCL and others to enhance compensation to farmers as per provisions of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, (RFCTLARR Act) 2013 in cases were award was fixed as per old law but compensation has not been paid to land owners.
The minister said of the 9.8 lakh crore of NPAs of the banks, 3.8 lakh crore belonged to the road sector but a series of meetings led to rolling out of these stuck projects.

He said the government could slightly miss the target of building 30 km of road a day this fiscal but was trying hard to achieve it.
The present road building pace is 18 km a day. He said the target to award projects for 10,000 km will be achieved.
The minister said the Highways Ministry expected a budgetary allocation of Rs 65,000 crore in the budget in comparison to Rs 45,000 crore earlier but at the same time stressed that there was no dearth of funds in the highways sector.
On allegations of favouring IRB Infrastructure in award of Rs 10,050 crore Zojila pass tunnel, Gadkari said due process including global tenders was followed and no one has right to tarnish his political image with false allegations.

Blaming the wrong policies of the government in the fast for the plight of farmers, the Minister said their was need to focus on farmers and also urged them to diversify their crop pattern.