BICHOLIM: The Surla Gram Kruti Samiti from Surla, Bicholim fighting for the farmers’ compensations with the mining company, said they are dejected with the status quo and having had to run from pillar to post; and has thus called upon the authorities to find solution as far as giving compensation to the rightful owners is concerned.
Under the leadership of Gokuldas Gaonkar, the Samiti had filed a case against the mining companies for compensation in 2004 and won the case in 2007.
Following this the company gave Rs 3.66 crore and accordingly, the office of the Deputy Collector was vested with the right to distribute the funds to the farmers.
But since then, out of 761 farmers, only 57 farmers have been compensated while others have still been left high and dry. “The authorities want that the farmers should show the succession deed but in most of the cases this is not possible. We demand that the government to compensate the farmers by using some other means”, said Samiti member, Uday Natekar.
“The fund is with the government since 2007 and it has now grown manifold. I have personally briefed about seven to eight Deputy Collectors about the issues related to farmers in the village but by the time the discussions were done, they used to get transfer orders and I had to narrate the entire ordeal to the new officer,” Natekar added.
He demanded that the government comes up with some other way to sort out the issue. “The money belongs to the farmers but still they are deprived of it only because they do not have proper documentation,” he added.
The Samiti is also enraged over the fact that recently about 41 farmers were given the funds of 41 lakh at the hands of the Chief Minister and no Samiti member was invited for the function.
