Assam: Highway-affected villagers demand compensation in Dima Hasao district

Haflong: Demanding immediate release of compensation, several hundreds of NH-affected villagers of 28 villages in Dima Hasao district, residing along NH-27 road in between Nrimbanglo-Harangajao protested in front of the N C Hills Autonomous Council office gate on Tuesday.

The protest led by Indigenous Students Forum (ISF), Indigenous Women Forum (IWF) and NHAI-affected people was later lifted after NCHAC Principal secretary, Debanon Daulagupu gave an assurance for releasing compensation amount in a few days.

Daulagupu who is also the chairman of Damage Assessment Committee (DAC) informed that all assessments of the damaged area have been completed and paper work have been prepared which will be sent to Chief Minister office for approval once a final meeting with the DAC and land affected people was done.

Altogether 29 villages were affected, however one of the villages got compensation under Right of Way (RoW) and 805 families are waiting to receive the compensation amount.

A large portion of fertile land was affected by dumping of land during highway conversion and the villagers have been demanding compensation for over the past decade from the NHAI. Since NHAI have denied compensation as they did not acquire the land (dumping purpose), the Assam government is bearing the compensation at a tune of Rs. 22 crore.

The East-West corridor, a dream project of former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee to connect Silchar with Gujarat’s Saurashtra was announced by Vajpayee on October 10, 1998. The foundation stone of the project was laid in 2004 and the 3,300 km Silchar-Saurashtra road was supposed to be completed by 2007.

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