New formula mooted by Jayant Sinha to resolve NTPC land

With a view to resolve the bottleneck created by raiyats in handing over land acquired by NTPC for a coal mining project at Pakri Barwadi, a new formula has been mooted, which will be finalised by Chief Minister Raghubar Das and NTPC CMD, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha today said.
Addressing a press conference here, Sinha said the proposal was given by him for settlement so that it could provide some more relief to the raiyats.
The Union Minister said under the proposal it was decided though NTPC was given three coal blocks at Pakri Barwadi, Keredari and Chatti Bariatu in Hazaribagh district, it would start coal mining in Pakri Barwadhi for which the raiyats have already given the company possession either voluntarily or by taking compensation.

Sinha said out of 8,056 acres acquired, 4,839 acres belong to the raiyats of which 4,071 acres were acquired under the Coal Bearing Act affecting 7,271 families and 433 acres affecting 1,474 families.
He said in all 1,330 families voluntarily handed over the land after taking compensation.
The Minister said so far 2,430 families have already handed over their land after taking compensation.

He said land was acquired both under the Coal Bearing Act and Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and made it clear that now the benefits could be given to the raiyats under the 2013 Land Acquisition Act.
Sinha said after the meeting held with the raiyats and the Chief Minister and NTPC CMD on August 16 in Ranchi, it was decided that no land would be taken by NTPC from those raiyats who were yet to hand over their land.

He said NTPC has made it clear that currently they would do mining in only such land handed over by the 2,430 raiyats.
Under the new proposal, it was proposed to provide employment to each of the displaced families by the miners in addition to Rs 20 lakh as compensation.
Besides this, under the R&R policy, each family would be paid Rs nine lakh as lump sum.
The Minister said the new proposals would be more attractive and better than the Coal India package.