PPP PROTESTS AGAINST CENTRE’S LAND BILL
Saturday, 11/04/2015
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GURDASPUR: Leaders and workers of the district unit of People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) took out a protest march against “antipeople policies” of the central government here on Friday.
They also staged a dharna and blocked traffic for about half an hour at Post Office Chowk on the Grand Trunk Road here before handing over a charter of demands to Gurdaspur deputy commissioner Abhinav Trikha for submission to President Pranab Mukherjee.
While addressing the protesters, PPP district president Hardyal Singh Gajnipur said the BJP-led NDA government was adamant to pass the land acquisition bill even after its failure to get the bill passed by Parliament.
He said though the SAD was opposing the ordinance, it was an act of shedding crocodile tears.
He urged the President not to let the ordinance to be turned into an Act for it would promote the interests of the corporate sector at the cost of marginal farmers.
Gajnipur, however, demanded that if the government was to acquire land of a farmer, it should offer him the market rate, ouster allowance, means of rehabilitation and a job to the affected family in the corporate unit for which their land would be acquired.
Gajnipur also demanded payments to the farmers at the time of purchasing their sugarcane produce for the private and cooperative sugar mills of the state.
He asked for on the spot payment to the farmers while procuring their basmati 1121 and release of their outstanding payments.
Gajnipur demanded that illegal activities of land mafia, sand mafia and concrete mafia be controlled firmly to the larger interest of the common man in Punjab. Gajnipur sought a compensation of ` 30,000 per acre for thecrops damaged by natural calamities.
