Land acquisitions increase poverty

Speakers tell Prothom Alo roundtable

8 May 2010, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

Dr Ainun Nishat, vice-chancellor of Brac University, speaks at a roundtable at the Prothom Alo seminar room yesterday.Photo: STAR

Tardy compensation and insensitive rehabilitation increase poverty and sufferings of the people displaced by land acquisitions for various development projects, speakers said yesterday at a roundtable in the city. The daily Prothom Alo and Brac University's Development Institute jointly organised the roundtable titled 'Infrastructure Development and People: Rehabilitation Challenge' at Prothom Alo seminar room. "Past experiences show that land acquisitions increase poverty," said Syed Ziauddin Ahmed, director of Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC). The government must always avoid acquiring more lands than actually required for a project, he said. "Land acquisition is a psychological trauma that people suffer after being displaced from their ancestral property and homesteads," said Dr Ainun Nishat, vice-chancellor of Brac University. An estimated total of 1.25 lakh families will be displaced to implement the Padma Bridge and open pit coal mining in Fulbari, said the speakers. The government must immediately finalise the draft national policy on involuntary resettlement in consultation with the affected people and ensure adequate and timely compensation to the genuine affected landowners, they said. The government has to set up an easy compensation system so that the people affected by land acquisitions do not have to run after the authorities, said former public works secretary Rashidul Hai. Authorities should take local people's opinions and digitise land records to ascertain land ownership for speedy delivery of compensation, he said. The government, if it intends, can spare private land and occupy public one for a project to save the ordinary people from sufferings, said Hai referring to Hatirjheel and Tejgaon link road projects in the capital. The government can easily rehabilitate the displaced people of a locality in the same area providing them with khas land, as such land is available at every village, said Md Moniruzzaman, chairman of Alinagar Union Parishad in Madaripur. Maj Gen Golam Quader, former adviser to a caretaker government, said the government has to invest more on expansion of rail and inland waterways instead of spending on surface road construction occupying public and private lands. The proposed policy on involuntary resettlement lacks the spirit of respecting the affected people, said Nityananda Chakrborty, a consultant to Asian Development Bank. Moderated by Prothom Alo Joint Editor Abdul Quayum, the roundtable was chaired by Syed Hashemi, director of Brac Development Institute.