Amid the hue and cry over
land acquisition in
Noida, the Centre on Thursday sought to blame the Mayawati government for the mess and favoured payment of rightful compensation to the aggrieved farmers.
Government sources felt that the land was acquired from farmers of villages near Noida on the pretext of infrastructure and industrial projects and was later diverted to builders at rates several times more than the acquisition costs.
The issue was also discussed by a panel of ministers recently.
The sources said that a view in the government was that since the land has been rendered unusable for farmers given the largescale construction in the area, negotiating a better compensation package was the only way out for the Mayawati government.
The sources said the farmers were given to believe that their land would be used for industrial projects that could create employment opportunities for the people of the region.
A view in the ministerial panel was that the Uttar Pradesh government has to resolve the issue and order a probe into the alleged nexus between builders and state government functionaries.
Recently, the Allahabad High Court struck down acquisition of hundreds of hectares of land in villages in Greater Noida - dubbed as Noida Extension by builders - leading to uncertainty over the fate of several residential projects in the region.
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