The Uttar Pradesh government’s ambitious Jewar International Airport project, expected to be constructed by 2022, appears to have hit a land acquisition hurdle following stiff resistance from the residents of all the eight villages of Gautam Buddha Nagar district. The villages fall under the phase 1 of the project.

Just days before the state government signed the MoU with the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), Noida and Greater Noida Industrial Development Authorities to monitor and fast-track the work on the project, it changed the nomenclature of the land of 16 villages of the district, eight of which come under the project’s first phase, from rural to urban.

This meant that the compensation payable to villagers for their land would now be two times that of the circle rate as compared to four times had the area remained rural. Farmers of all the eight villages, who came to attend public meetings prior to the land acquisition, opposed the move and said that if their demands are not met, they will resort to a repeat of the Bhatta-Parsaul incident.

“In all the meetings, which continued from May 28 to June 2, villagers voiced their protest against the change in the land use from rural to urban and said they would not accept the compensation as per the new norms,” SDM of Jewar Prasan Dwivedi said, adding that the meetings saw thousands of villagers turning out.

“Almost 500-600 people came from every village to voice their concerns and discuss them. We have video recorded the entire proceedings and would soon be submitting the same to the state government along with a report based on the demands of villagers. The state government will take a final call on the compensation,” Dwivedi said.

Dharmendra Singh, the ruling party MLA from Jewar, has met chief minister Yogi Adityanath and senior officials to apprise them of the discomfort and dissent simmering at the grassroots level and has also written to them.

“On May 18 this year, the state government, through a notification (a copy of which is with FE), imposed Section 12A of the UP Industrial Act on 16 villages of Jewar, which effectively terminated the Panchayati Raj system and made these villages urban areas. By dint of this order, these villagers will now be given twice the circle rate as compensation for their land, as opposed to four times the rate that had the area remained rural.

This is unfair. Changing the land use just prior to land acquisition process being set in motion is actually cheating the farmers of their legal right. Land is their sole bread-earner, especially so in Jewar, which has the most fertile land in the country as it falls in the doab region between rivers Ganga and Yamuna,” Singh said, adding that despite being a member of the ruling party, he thought it was his duty as a people’s representative to make their concerns known to higher authorities.

“Moreover, the Eastern Peripheral Expressway that the Prime Minister recently inaugurated, also comes under the same district, land for which was acquired at four times the circle rate. How do we, as public emissaries, explain to farmers that now their land for the airport project is worth only half the price as that of their neighbours’ was for the expressway project?” asks a perturbed Singh.

“I have been trying to convince the CM and officials concerned about the gravity of the situation. Especially so because our government openly states that it is a pro-farmer party. If that is the image we want to stick to, we must take care of the concerns of the farmers,” he said.

However, speaking on condition of anonymity, officials of the financial department sid the state’s coffers are empty and doling out another Rs 4,000 crore for land acquisition would be next to impossible. “If we continue to dither on this, we may lose the prestigious project, which would then go to either Haryana and Rajasthan, as both states have available land at their disposal,” said an industry source.

Speaking to FE, UP minister for civil aviation Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi said of the total 3,000 ha needed for the project, 1,441 ha would be required for the first phase and the government would spend Rs 4,000 crore towards land acquisition for the greenfield airport.

Of Rs 4,000 crore, Rs 1,500 crore will be made available by budget allocated to state civil aviation department, while another Rs 1,500 crore will be provided by the Noida authority. An amount of Rs 500 crore each will be shared by the Greater Noida Authority and the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).

While the UP government and the Noida authority will both have 37.5% share, the Greater Noida Authority and the YEIDA will both have 12.5% share in it.

“The PwC is working on preparing the bid document. The concessionnaire for setting up the airport under the PPP mode will be selected via global bidding mechanism,” the minister said, adding that the state government is committed to finish all necessary formalities at the earliest.