Guj to pay 30% more for land

AHMEDABAD: The state government has decided that it will pay 30% more than the prevailing jantri rates for acquiring land for constructing canals under the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL) project.
Replying to Karjan MLA Chandu Dabhi's query, water supply and water resources minister Nitin Patel informed the assembly that the land was earlier acquired free of cost from the farmers.But now the government has decided that the land would be acquired by paying a rate which would be 30% more than the prevailing jantri rates.
Earlier there were some hurdles while acquiring land. But Patel expects the issues to be resolved as farmers will get a good price and may be now willing to give their land for the project.
As for the project's completion, the minister failed to specify a time frame. To this, Dabhi argued that the government was dragging its feet on the project and that only 580 sq km of canal was constructed in the past two years. "At this rate - constructing 280 km of canal per year - the project will take another 176 years to get complete", added Dabhi.
Under the project, 51,168 km of canal which includes main, distribution, minor and sub-minor canals are to be constructed. Of this, about 18,855.90 km of canal work has been completed.
To a query from Dabhoi MLA Siddharth Patel, the minister replied that by December 31, 2010, it has spent Rs 32,654.49 crore, while another Rs 18,363.10 crore would be spent for completion of the project.