A group of aggrieved villagers from Kommepalli in Sattupalli mandal on Monday created a flutter by staging a demonstration with a pesticide bottle in front of the Zilla Parishad Office in Khammam in protest against the alleged irregularities in implementation of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) package for the Project Affected Families (PAFs) of the JVR Opencast Project (OCP-II).
The demonstrators comprising several women from Kommepalli gathered at the Gandhi statue on the premises of the ZP office building just before the commencement of the weekly grievance redressal meeting. Holding a banner claiming themselves as “aggrieved land losers” of the State-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL)’s JVR OCP-II, they held a demonstration demanding a thorough probe into the alleged discrepancies in the implementation of the R&R package for the PAFs of the opencast expansion project.
Stating that the government sanctioned compensation to a total of 229 members under the R&R package, they alleged that the staff concerned refused to hand over cheques to some of the land losers on “unjustified grounds” in the meeting held in connection with the distribution of cheques at the mandal Tahsildar’s office on August 28 this year.
Shout slogans
They shouted slogans demanding immediate intervention of the district administration to ensure rehabilitation of all the eligible PAFs of their village. Mild commotion broke out when one of the women protesters displayed a pesticide bottle during the demonstration. The police personnel deployed at the entrance of the building recovered the bottle containing pest-control substance from the demonstrator.
Later, a delegation of the aggrieved villagers submitted a memorandum to the district authorities seeking action against those who allegedly indulged in corrupt practices in disbursement of compensation and allotment of plots under the R&R package, causing “injustice” to several land losers of Kommepalli.
They sought urgent steps to probe the matter to weed out “ineligible persons” and ensure justice to all the eligible land-losers as per the provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. The authorities reportedly assured them of a detailed inquiry into the complaint to ascertain the facts.
