Randeep Singh Surjewala slams Haryana government over denotification of Dadupur-Nalvi land

CHANDIGARH: Condemning the denotification of the Dadupur-Nalvi Canal project, senior Congress leader and CWC permanent invitee Member Randeep Singh Surjewala has described the state government's move as the 'grave injustice, betrayal and deception with the farmers' of the northern Haryana. He said that the Congress would ensure justice to the affected farmers if the party forms government in the state after assembly elections next year.
The wrong decision of the Khattar government of asking the affected farmers to return the compensation amount along with the interest has dealt multiple blows among the farmers, who are already facing acute hardships due to anti-farmer policies of the state and Central government, Surjewala added on Wednesday.
"On the one side, the farmers of northern Haryana are facing bleak future on account of depleting water level and scrapping the Dadupur-Nalvi canal project, and at the same time the farmers are being threatened to pay back the received compensation along with the interest" Surjewala said.
Calling the Dadupur-Nalvi project as the 'life line of the northern Haryana', Surjewala said that this decision of the government would deprive the one lakh hectare land in 225 villages of Ambala, Yamunanagar and Kurukshetra districts of essential irrigation resources. "The Dadupur-Nalvi project is an absolute necessity not only for the northern Haryana, but, for the entire region," he added.
Surjewala said that the state government's decision on Dadupur-Nalvi was like cheating on the farmers as the land acquired was either not used by the government or the land was not available to farmers for so many years. "If the state government wants to cancel the project, then it has no moral right to demand the compensation amount for the land and interest on it", he further added.
Referring to the Chhattisgarh government's decision of returning the 1,764 hectares land free of cost to the farmers, Surjewala said that Chhattisgarh's Congress government returned the land acquired for the Tata Steel Plant to the farmers as the land was not utilised for the acquired project in five years of its acquisition.