Tisco Explains Gopalpur Compensation Package

Tata Iron and Steel Co (Tisco) has given clarification on the objections raised by a joint fact finding team of the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), Delhi, and the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), West Bengal, on the compensation and rehabilitation package announced for the people affected by its new steel project at Gopalpur, Orissa.

The six-member joint PUDR/APDR team had outlined three objections to the compensation and rehabilitation package.

The team's report had said that the Rs 1 lakh per acre compensation announced was inadequate and pathetically low.

To this, Tisco has said that the highest sales value of all land transactions were taken into account before arriving at the compensation figure. Another 30 per cent was added to the compensation figure as sloatium and 12 per cent towards as interest charges. The amount that a land owner gets would be equal to the highest sales transaction plus 42 per cent of the value. Whenever the value was less than Rs 1 lakh per acre, the company paid an ex-gratia amount of up to Rs 30,000 per acre.

 

Gopalpur project vice-president B Muthuraman said the current average agricultural income per acre of cultivable land is approximately Rs 10,000 per year. As against this, the compensation that the landowner is getting ranges from Rs 1-1.77 lakh per acre and thus above the average of the actual transactions.

The company has also discounted the report's claim that on an average the income generated by one acre of land is between Rs 60,000 and Rs 70,000 per year, It says that this does not occur even in the most fertile areas in the country.

Regarding employment, the company says that once construction work begins, the steel plant and its ancillaries would involve 3000 to 6000 people even in the first year at any point of time.

The report had said that 2,500 skilled people would get employment in the plant itself, while another 8,000 temporary jobs would be generated in construction activities.

About 20 per cent of the land in the project site belongs to the government which has been compensated for at the rate applicable as per the industrial policy. The unauthorised encroachers on this land are normally not entitled for compensation under the Land Acquisition Act. However as a special case, Tisco is paying an ex-gratia compensation for a maximum of one acre of land even for such encroachers.

On this the report had said that the compensation package does not address the question of government land.

In areas under consideration, 700 to 800 acres of government land has been ploughed. Another 550 to 650 acres lie fallow and is used for cattle grazing and fuel. No compensation is envisaged for these resources, the report said.