Novel way of protest by Nalanda farmers

BIHARSHARIF: Over 200 farmers of Seema village under Silao police station area in Nalanda district resorted to a unique way to protest against the delay in payment of compensation against acquisition of their land for construction of Biharsharif-Bodh Gaya (NH-82) four lane.
These farmers dug up a huge stretch on the land acquired for widening the existing two-lane road and planted banana saplings.Villagers including Ramji Prasad, Kanhaiya Kumar, Vimal Paswan, Chandi Devi and others said that their repeated requests to the district administration for the last two years have failed to yield any result.
However, district administration sources said that most of the farmers, whose lands were acquired for road construction purposes, had already got their compensation amount. Only a handful of them are left as some necessary papers were not available with them.
“There are some farmers who have demanded a compensation more than what the government had stipulated for a particular category of land. They will be soon contacted and their grievances will be addressed,” said an official.
Earlier, similar protest was witnessed in April 2015 when angry villagers had planted banana saplings on Patna- Bakhtiyapur NH- 30 stretch, which was being upgraded to four-lane.