Newest airport in Delhi NCR at Jewar needs farmers' support, says admin

Seeking farmers' support to expedite work on the proposed Jewar airport, the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration Thursday assured special efforts to ensure education and employment to children of the people whose land will be acquired for the Greenfield project.

Top officials of the administration, including District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh, held a meeting in Greater Noida with the farmers who have consented to acquisition of their land in Jewar for the international airport, according to an official statement.

The Uttar Pradesh government had on October 30 issued a notification for the acquisition of land for the airport under sub-section (1) of section 11 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

Now, the Section 15 of the Act, which allows for hearing of objections, if any, related to the acquisition of the land, is to be invoked and the process, as per the law, takes two months (60 days).

"This is a very important project for the area. Therefore, all farmers should realise its significance and support the district administration in pursuing the project," Singh said, according to a statement.

He said that the provision of Section 15 for the construction of Jewar airport is to be carried out within two months but if the farmers want this work can be done faster and it can be completed within one month only, according to the statement. He also assured continuous support of the administration to the farmers.

"The administration will ensure special efforts for the education and employment of the children of the farmers who will be rehabilitated because of the airport project. Local industrial units, the MSME as well as builders associations have also come forward for this cause," he said.

A total of 5,000 hectares of land is to be acquired for the green field airport estimated worth Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 crore. For the first phase of the airport -- the second in Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) -- 1,334 hectare land is required.

A total of 1,239 hectare land belonging to farmers from six villages (Rohi, Dayanatpur, Parohi, Kishorpur, Ranhera and Banwariwas) will be acquired by the state government and due compensation will be given to them, according to officials.

The district magistrate also assured the farmers that all the proceedings will be completed by the officers at their homes and they will not have to visit government offices. ADM (land and acquisition) Balram Singh, Jewar Airport officer in-charge Abhay Kumar, Deputy Collector P L Maurya and Sub Divisional Magistrate Prasunn Dwivedi also attended the meeting.

About 6.2 hectares land has been earmarked from Banwariwas village, 395 hectare from Dayanatpur, 171.1 hectare from Kishorpur, 108.4 hectare from Parohi, 124.9 hectare from Ranhera, and 433.1 hectare from Rohi, according to officials.

A social impact assessment (SIA) study was carried out for the project by the Gautam Buddh University, which had submitted its recommendations to the state government. The SIA recommendations were approved by the government on October 10.

According to the SIA report, 5,905 families will be impacted by the project and out of these 5,007 are farmers' families while 898 are landless families. During the first phase, 1,775 families are likely to be displaced, they said.

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Some landowners, including farmers and villagers, had initially resisted the land acquisition citing various reasons such as "inadequate" compensation amount and related benefits besides the resettlement policy.