‘600 acres of agricultural land is being acquired as part of the Srinagar Ring Road project’
‘Famers were paid compensation according to 1996 rates as more than 600 full-grown apple trees were axed last year’
Srinagar: In Kashmir, as India’s National Highways Authority have uprooted and felled trees from the orchards in order to build new roads, farmers who lost their land and trees have been crying out in despair as no compensation has been given to them.
The land has been acquired from farmers on the basis of laws that have been repealed due to the abrogation of Article 370, DowntoEarth reported.
The report quoting farmers said that they have not been compensated according to current rates.
The trees have been felled at the sites of two under-construction Ring Roads that are being built to decongest traffic in Srinagar and Jammu cities
Some 600 acres of agricultural land is being acquired for a 62-kilometre highway connecting Pulwama with Ganderbal via Budgam as part of the Srinagar Ring Road project.
The NHAI and a private infrastructure company, NKC Projects Pvt Ltd, have uprooted and axed thousands of apple, plum, pear and peach trees in several villages of Kashmir in the last six months, the report said.
Earthmovers and motorized axes were used to uproot the fruit trees in several villages of Budgam and Srinagar.
As per the report the famers in Gudsathoo village of Budgam were paid compensation according to 1996 rates as more than 600 full-grown apple trees were axed last year in October.
In Wathoora village of Budgam, NHAI and NKC Projects Pvt Ltd, along with officials of the revenue department, uprooted around 250 plum and apple trees last month without even intimating the affected farmers.
“Around mid-day on March 30, 2022, the earth movers of NKC Projects Pvt Ltd, assisted by the site engineer of NHAI and the Naib Tehsildar of Chadoora tehsil trespassed into our farm and started uprooting fruit trees which included plum, pear, apple and quince. The local police were also accompanying them,” the report quoted Mohammad Afzal, a farmer from Wathoora, as saying.
He added that all the uprooted trees were in full bloom, with huge flowers and were supposed to yield a bumper crop this season.
Quoting Afzal further, the report said, “This was simply a criminal trespass as we have not been given any compensation for land and have been given some part of the compensation for fruit trees which is very less.”
He was given compensation according to 1996 rates. In 1996, the rate of apple per kg rate was Rs 16 and that of plum was Rs 13. This is now seven to eight times higher.
The administration has paid Rs 4,700-5,000 as compensation for each plum and apple tree of Mohammad Afzal, the report mentioned.
These trees bear at least 70-80 kg of fruit every year. This means each tree fetches Rs 5,000-6,000 annually as plum and apple are sold at Rs 70 per kg in the wholesale market.
“My 20 to 25-year-old fruit trees uprooted by the government would have given me livelihood for the next 20 to 30 years. But they were murdered mercilessly. I was not even given a chance to transplant them,” Mohammad Afzal was quoted as saying.
“Had the authorities told us in advance, we could have done this in late February which is the best time for tree transplantation. We want action against the errant officers,” Afzal said.
Even more shocking is the misuse of law. There were legal issues in the past but after the abrogation of Article 370, the government could have invoked the Right to Fair Compensation Act, 2013, to compensate the affected farmers.
Also, the notification issued under the Jammu and Kashmir Land Acquisition Act, 1934 for the Srinagar Ring Road in 2017, elapsed in 2019.
But the government didn’t care about that and continued the acquisition proceedings under the repealed law even post Article 370 abrogation. This has been challenged before the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir by some farmers and the matter is still sub judice.
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