Mumbai, May 15 (IANS) Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said that the project-affected people of the Koyna Dam project have sacrificed for the state and that it is the government’s responsibility to provide them with alternative land.

He said that the proposals regarding land allotment for these project-affected persons, received from the District Collectors of Pune, Satara, Sangli, and Solapur, should be immediately verified and sent to the Divisional Commissioner of Pune by the end of the month.

He instructed the Pune Divisional Commissioner to verify the applications and, in the first fortnight of June, hold a meeting with organisations representing the project-affected to ensure that the eligible beneficiaries receive land allotment without delay.

Pawar, who chaired the meeting at Mantralaya, said that the complete rehabilitation and land allotment for the Koyna dam-affected have been pending for a long time, adding that the issue should be resolved without further delay. The meeting was attended by the Relief and Rehabilitation Minister, Makarand Patil, and government officials.

“At present, a list of 310 eligible project-affected persons from Satara district and 215 from Sangli district has been prepared, and land allotment to them must be completed urgently. District Collectors from the remaining districts must also verify pending proposals and forward them to the Divisional Commissioner for further action. The Divisional Commissioner may take decisions at his level, and those matters requiring resolution at the government level should be forwarded to the state, which will take prompt action,” said Pawar.

His directives came when the Bombay High Court had asked the state government to allot a family alternate land for their rehabilitation, especially when their land was taken over for the construction of the Koyna dam in Satara in 1960, but they weren’t allotted alternate plots as promised.

The petitioner said that 1.6 hectares of land were eventually allotted to the Kadam family at Pendhar in Panvel tehsil in November 2017, following a policy decision taken by the state government to rehabilitate the displaced families.

However, in January 2019, the allotment order was abruptly cancelled, with the state government claiming that the allotted land was uneven, the area was not contiguous, and there were some constructions on it.

–IANS

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