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Patna,(BiharTimes): The 3,300 MW power project, a joint venture of the Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), at Nabinagar in Aurangabad district has run into rough weather with farmers protesting against what they say inadequate and too little compensation from the government.
To be built in collaboration with the National Power Generation Company (NPGC), the power project is expected to bring some light in the tunnel called Bihar. But, for a moment, that seems to be now a far cry as the farmers have decided to launch a Nandigram or Singrur type movement here. |
With farmers of Chainpur in Muzaffarpur district opposing asbestos plant those in Nabinagar in south Bihar simply do not want to get rid of what they say three-crop land in the vicinity of Sone for so little in return. One person died in the agitation against the land acquisition on January 15 last though the administration says that he died of cold not police crackdown. The agitators reportedly set a rail engine and a coach on fire. Chief minister Nitish Kumar had issued a stern warning to the farmers, who have taken to streets.
It was the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who in late 1980s, first dreamt of a power plant in Nabinagar. Better late than never. A power plant, a joint venture of the NTPC and the railways, is coming up just five kilometres from where another plant is being planned. The farmers displaced for that project have got a compensation of around Rs 13 to 14 lakh per acre though the land was not as fertile as the one for which the farmers are now agitating. “If they got so much why are we offered just Rs five or six lakh for much fertile land,” one of the farmers asked.
Though chief minister Nitish Kumar wants to bring some light in his second term farmers are furious with the government for several other reasons too. They complained that they are hit by repeated droughts for which the state government had done nothing. They have to indulge in distress selling of their crop recently. This has compounded their misery.
The state government has acquired 1,900 acres of land, but there is a dispute over around 800 acres, for which the farmers, as reported earlier, are being paid between Rs five to six lakh per acre. The local people look with suspicious the move to set up another mega power plant too close to the one already coming up in the vicinity. That the NTPC is yet to set up its office only increases their doubt.
On the other hand the government officials claim that agitators have staked their claim on government land. The chief minister had made it clear that there is no point paying compensation for the government land.
Anyway ‘industrialization’ is seeking its own pound of flesh in Bihar be it in Nabinagar or Chainpur in Muzaffarpur district.
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