The revenue and land reforms department in Bihar on Tuesday reviewed issues related to land acquisition for 85 NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) projects and directed both district land acquisition officers and NHAI officials to maintain sensitivity in assessing the nature of land for acquisition so that disputes over compensation could be minimised, a senior official said.
Additional chief secretary (revenue) Brijesh Mehrotra said there should be flexibility in determining the nature of land for acquisition and compensation to land owners. тАЬOtherwise, it would only lead to delay in land acquisition and litigation over compensation,тАЭ he said.
At the meeting on Tuesday, the status of land acquisition of 85 projects of NHAI projects and other projects were reviewed,тАЭ officials said.
тАЬMost of the khatiyan (land rights) records are 100 years old in the state. Back then, urbanisation was minimal. Now, if a land falling in urban areas is determined as agricultural land and compensation fixed accordingly, it would only create resentment among land owners whose land is earmarked for acquisition to implement NHAI projects,тАЭ Mehrotra said, as per a press statement issued by the department.
He also highlighted the fact that in many districts, the category of land acquired by NHAI previously has changed, caused a lot of resentment. Like, he said, there were complaints by people about getting less compensation for land acquired for the Patna-Buxar four-lane project sanctioned in 2011-12, which later got merged with the Danapur-Bihta elevated road project.
In Bakhtiarpur-Khagaria road project, similar complaints have been received, officials said.
тАЬWe have to speed up the process of payment of compensation amount so that the projects of NHAI, national highways and railways get momentum,тАЭ Mehrotra said.
New SMS system for detection of tampering with land records
The revenue and land reforms department is developing a system under which land owners would get a notification through SMS in their phones in case there is any change or tampering in their jamabandi records, called the tenantsтАЩ ledger.
тАЬThe system would work like the same when money is withdrawn from any ATM and a notification is sent to the account holder. The department is working to link all jamabandi records of tenants with their Aadhaar cards and phone numbers,тАЭ said Mehrotra.
The tenantsтАЩ ledger has details of the land holding of tenants, the amount of rent fixed and other details of the land owners.
In a review meeting of the department, the ACS (revenue) also took stock of the ongoing work of digitisation of records, as per an official release issued by the department.
