Mopa airport: Govt moves to acquire land in 3 villages

PANAJI: The government on Thursday invoked Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act to acquire 22,63,185 sq m of land for the proposed Mopa airport in three villages of Chandel, Casarvarnem and Varcond in Pernem taluka.

While the government had initially proposed to acquire 74.99 lakh sq m of land in six villages, only about 48.70 lakh sq m of land had been taken in possession in four villages.

The 22,63,185 sq m now sought to be acquired was earlier left out from the acquisition proceedings because residents of Pernem petitioned the Bombay high court at Goa challenging the land acquisition.

In its judgment, the high court directed the government to hear out the petitioners once again and to go ahead with the land acquisition. Official sources said that the high court took cognizance of the fact that the land acquisition was genuinely for a public purpose. Since the petitioners are also aggrieved over the terms of the land acquisition, the chief minister has also publicly declared the government’s intentions of coming out with a new land acquisition policy where the compensations are much higher than before.

Official sources said that once the new land acquisition policy is declared, the petitioners’ grievances will be addressed. As of now, the state government has already taken possession of about 65% of the land required for the construction of the proposed Mopa airport in the four Pernem villages of Mopa (23,64,065 sq m), Casarvarnem (7,75,916 sq m), Chandel (3,37,265 sq m) and Uguem (4,50,935 sq m).

The government has also passed the awards to the affected persons.

The award for four villages totals 29.64 crore so far. The break-up of the award amount is as follows; Mopa ( 14,01,89,277), Chandel ( 5,18,15,510), Casarvarnem ( 7,00,06,376) and Uguem ( 3,44,11,141).

 

SOURCE: THE TIMES OF INDIA