In Haflong villagers on infinite strike seeks payoff from NHAI

Haflong: Residents of at least 29 villages in south Assam’s Dima Hasao district, affected by land dumping for the construction of National Highway-27 (NH-54), have started an indefinite sit-in at Haflong.

Affected people from the Indigenous Students Forum (ISF), Indigenous Women’s Forum (IWF), and NHAI staged a sit-in at Jatinga Point along National Highway 27 in Halong on Monday, demanding early compensation. An early release was demanded.
The protest led to severe traffic disruption on NH-27 in the area. Later, the protestors approached the NHAI Project Implementing Unit office in Haflong Town to inquire the reason behind the delay in release of payment. Surprisingly, no NHAI official was present to interact with them.
“We have started an indefinite dharna together with the zamindars of 29 villages,” said ISF president David Keivom. It was announced that we will be compensated by NHAI and Railways. Railways has already compensated us in 2020 after the then Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s intervention.
“Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also directed NHAI to compensate us in a meeting on January 25, 2022. NHAI had also agreed to do so. All the necessary bills required by the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) have already been handed over to the NHAI. But the NHAI is not paying attention to it, despite what the chief minister or the home department says,” he said.
Keivom added that NHAI told him that they will do black topping of the Jatinga-Harangajao stretch of NH and asked for 6 months for it and even after 9 months the road remains the same and has deteriorated further. .
He said that we will continue the protest until our demand is met.
According to the forum, more than 945 families living along Nrimbanglo-Harangajao have been affected by land dumping in their paddy field for which the bill amounting to Rs 32 crore has been settled by the revenue department of North Catcher Hills Autonomous Council has been submitted to NHAI.
“Large areas of my fertile land where we earn our livelihood were destroyed by the construction company. Whenever we approach the company, they make false complaints of threatening them with weapons. How will my family survive if we are not compensated, we have lost our land and livelihood or livelihood,” said a woman from Nrimbanglo.
“More than 6 bighas of my land where I grow pineapple, betel nut, orange and ginger has been destroyed by dumping the land by the company. Now the land is of no use, I cannot plant any crops there and I can build a house.” An elderly women of Jatinga village said, “It’s been more than 10 years since I asked them for compensation, but they don’t pay any attention to our complaint.
The East-West Corridor, a dream project of former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was announced by Vajpayee on 10 October 1998 to connect Silchar in South Assam with Saurashtra in Gujarat (by road).
The foundation stone of the project was laid in 2004 and the 3,300 km Silchar-Saurashtra road was to be completed by 2007.

Notably, in other parts of the country, the construction of the corridor has been completed, except for two sections namely Nrimbanglo-Jatinga stretch and Jatinga-Harangaja with about 49.23 km of both stretches combined.