Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Rajpura, June 21

Residents of three villages, particularly Schedule Caste and Other Backward Class tillers, are up in arms against the government alleging corruption in “compensation amount being transferred” to some politically connected individuals instead of actual tillers.

The administration has now ordered a probe into the land compensation transferred in the Modern Industrial Park and Integrated Manufacturing Cluster spread over more than 1,100 acres on the government and panchayat land in Rajpura. Alleging that many close to local political lobby have been “wrongfully transferred lakhs of rupees”, villagers are now demanding a probe into the whole acquisition process and transfer of compensation amount” at the behest of the local political lobby.

“In Aakrhi village, a panchayat member was allotted Rs 51 lakh compensation despite the fact that he neither owns land nor has any girdawari in his name,” claim over a dozen residents who have now demanded an impartial probe into the case. “In majority of the cases, poor landless tillers received merely Rs 9 lakh and in a few cases they were sidelined to accommodate politically connected persons,” says a villager.

The acquired land near a government school in the same village has been shown away from the school premises and allocated to a marriage palace, allege villagers.

“Even this needs to be probed as to how a marriage palace can come up just adjacent to a school. The whole land compensation process needs a thorough probe to ascertain the role of the panchayat and rural development officials and also the local politicians,” claims Gurdhian Singh Seona, senior leader of the Krantikari Kissan Union.

“Everyone knows the political lobby that has minted crores in this land compensation process. Only an impartial probe can unveil the land mafia in these villages,” he said.

In a complaint submitted to the Rajpura SDM, a copy of which was marked to the CM, many villagers have stated that the administration should conduct a fair probe. “In many cases, MGNREGA funds continue to be wrongly distributed among kin of local panchayat members. So, they don’t object to the wrongful compensation being paid to outsiders,” it read.

Rajpura SDM Khushdil Singh said: “As per the government directions, the village panchayat gets Rs 25 lakh, while the tiller gets Rs 9 lakh per acre. We will verify the complaint in detail.”

The integrated manufacturing cluster will be developed with the help of the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation on more than 1,100 acres of land.