J&K farmers waiting for compensation

JAMMU: Hundreds of farmers who own land adjacent to international border and the line of control will have to wait for some more time to get compensation for their land now being used by the Army deployed in forward positions.
This despite the fact that Union Minister of State for Defence Chaman Lal Gupta handed over a cheque of Rs 27.12 crore on Tuesday to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed for disbursement among these farmers.
The Centre had earlier given approximately Rs 10 crore to J&K government for farmers whose land was occupied by the Army for operational reasons almost a year ago.
Of this, only Rs 6 crore has been given to the farmers and a sum of Rs 4 crore could not be disbursed. The farmers had refused to accept part-payment of compensation for the losses they suffered saying they wanted the entire compensation in one go.
The worst sufferers would be the allottees of evacuee land, whose land is owned (on paper at least) by the custodian department. Due to this technicality, a substantial amount of the compensation would now go to the custodian department, known for its malpractices.
The custodian department is the trustee of all evacuee property in the state but the land was allotted to 1947 refugees for providing means of sustenance. While these people have suffered loss of three successive crops, they would not get any compensation now because the custodian department owns the land they till, according to Raman Kumar, a border villager.
Several officials of the custodian department are lobbying for getting the compensation amount transferred to the department. If the money is disbursed through them, they hope to make a killing by demanding a cut from the farmers being given the compensation, according to some officials in the deputy commissioner''s office here.
The custodian department has already managed to get a sum of Rs 1.3 crore transferred to itself from the compensation paid earlier but this has not been given to the affected farmers for reasons best known to it.
The matter was brought to Gupta''s notice by BJP leader Chander Prakash Ganga who had contested the recent assembly elections unsuccessfully from Vijaypur constituency. Earlier in the day, the CM thanked Gupta for helping the state in getting the compensation case expedited. Similar sentiments were expressed by his deputy, Mangat Ram Sharma of the Congress.
As things stand now, it appears none of them had any clue to the delay that would be caused by the handing over of the money to the custodian department.
Incidentally, Punjab and Rajasthan governments have already disbursed full compensation to their farmers. The amounts for both these states were much higher than the corresponding figure for J&K.