Process to acquire land for airport project at Jewar resumes

The Gautam Budh Nagar administration will start distribution of ₹2,850 crore funds to the farmers, whose land has to be acquired for the ambitious Noida International Greenfield Airport at Jewar project along the 165km Yamuna Expressway.

Nearly a week after the Allahabad high court dismissed a bunch of petitions by farmers seeking higher compensation for their land, the Gautam Budh Nagar administration has decided to start the acquisition process for the proposed Noida International Greenfield Airport at Jewar from Monday.

File photo of a government notification for land acquisition for the proposed international airport, in Jewar. (PTI File)

The administration will start distribution of ₹2,850 crore funds to the farmers, whose land has to be acquired for the ambitious project along the 165km Yamuna Expressway.

The high court on April 8 dismissed the pleas of eight farmers, who protested against the land acquisition for the airport project demanding higher compensation. These farmers had halted the land acquisition process.

Even after all legal hurdles were cleared on April 8, the district administration could not start the exercise of land acquisition immediately as the staff were busy in parliamentary elections. As the Gautam Budh Nagar Lok Sabha constituency saw polling on April 11, the staff are now free from election duties, said officials.

“Now, we are free from election duties. We will have a meeting with our staff on Monday to plan our future action with regard to the land acquisition and distribution of land compensation among farmers, whose land will be acquired for the airport project,” Balram Singh, additional district magistrate (ADM), Gautam Budh Nagar, said.

On February 23, 2019, eight farmers — Yogesh Kumar, Mukesh Kumar, Dev Dutt, Chander Pal and Kunwarpal Singh, among others, from Kishorpur village — had filed a plea in the high court to strike down the notification. But the court dismissed the pleas of the eight farmers, paving the way for further progress on the project that has potential to create jobs and boost local economy.

The administration needs to acquire 1239.14 hectares from 3,000 farmers’ families in the first phase of the airport project.

“We have set up a dedicated office at Greater Noida authority’s old office in Sector Gamma-I to deal with land acquisition process. All our staff dealing with land compensation will sit in this office,” the ADM said.

The estimated budget for the Jewar airport project is between ₹15,000 crore and ₹20,000 crore. The project is expected to be operational by 2022-2023. The entire project needs around 5,000 hectares of land.

NIAL will issue tender to select developer for the airport project as and when elections are over.