Noida authority begins settling land disputes of farmers

The Uttar Pradesh government had on April 17, 1976 established the New Okhla industrial development authority (NOIDA) with an aim to set up industries and provide residential facilities to those who would work in these industrial units.

The Noida authority on Wednesday started the process of resolving the long standing issues related to the residential (Abadi) land of the farmers.

Some farmers kept possession of land meant for urbanisation and the authority could not bring any development project on the same. It led to a dispute between the authority and the farmers. (Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times)

To begin with, the authority needs to settle disputes in 31 cases out of 36 in which the farmers have built their houses on land identified for development. Five tehsildars held separate meetings with farmers at the Sector 6 administrative office to begin the process of resolving the land disputes.

The Uttar Pradesh government had on April 17, 1976 established the New Okhla industrial development authority (NOIDA) with an aim to set up industries and provide residential facilities to those who would work in these industrial units. Noida’s urban area is carved out on 15,279.90 hectares of land out of 20,316 hectares which was acquired from 81 villages.

“Some farmers kept possession of land meant for urbanisation and the authority could not bring any development project on the same. It led to a dispute between the authority and the farmers. The authority wants to settle those cases where farmers did not accept compensation for the land which was identified and acquired for development. We hope the process will be completed in the next week and farmers will be able to get back the disputed land,” said RK Singh, officer on special duty of the Noida authority.

If an individual farmer uses more than 450 square metres of land, then he will have to give the remaining land to the authority to will become eligible for other benefits part of land compensation. “Each farmer family except the minor children and daughters are eligible for 450 square metres of residential land. Once the remaining land is given to the authority, we will provide other benefits such as hiked 64% land compensation and other benefits. Because of the dispute, the authority is unable to give additional benefits to farmers as per policy,” Singh said.

As per the authority, there are hundreds of Abadi land disputes, but not all farmers have come forward to settle them. Only 36 farmers gave applications to settle their disputes and 31 came forward to settle their issues.