Farmers demand meeting with Rahul Gandhi

The AICC General Secretary, Digvijay Singh, met the families of affected farmers in Aligarh district?s Tappal area on Friday. Demanding a higher compensation, the farmers there are opposing land acquisition by the state government for the construction of Yamuna Expressway.

After Singh assured them that the Congress will back their demand, the farmers demanded that Rahul Gandhi visit them and listen to their problems.

In his address to the farmers, Singh also demanded that the state government evolve a Resettlement and Rehabilitation policy on the lines of states like Haryana, where farmers are given compensation at the market rate. In addition, they are given an annuity starting at Rs 30,000 per acre, which increases by Rs 1000 per year for the next 33 years.

If UP wants some help from the Union Government to frame this policy, ?we would be ready to provide the help,? he said.

?The farmers gave me a list of their demands, which includes compensation rate at the rate of Rs 880 per square metre,? Singh said. ?They also expressed their wish to for Rahul Gandhi to meet them personally. I told them that they can form a delegation, who can put forward their problems before Rahul Gandhi.?

On Saturday, Singh will be in Lucknow to submit a memorandum about the corruption in disinvestment of the state?s sugar mills to the Lokayukta. Later in the day, he will participate in the Roza Iftar Party to be organised at the party headquarters in Lucknow.

RLD to hold demonstration over land acquisition act

Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) will stage a demonstration outside Parliament in New Delhi on August 26 to demand a new land acquisition act in place of the one which exists for more than a century. Party chief Chaudhary Ajit Singh will lead the demonstration.

RLD state president Ram Asrey Verma said they wanted a law which would bar forcible acquisition of land and ensure compensation to affected people at market rates. Verma said the government was still using an act which was created in 1894.

Verma said the UP government wanted to make eight expressways by acquiring 25 per cent agriculture land in the state. This would generate a food crisis as well as a big environmental problem, he said.

He said the state government instead of acting as an agency for business houses should play the role of a facilitator for development.