The reigning land acquisition controversy is set to spoil the party at the Formula 1 track in Greater Noida. Farmers of four villages, from whom the land was acquired by the Uttar Pradesh Government for the project, have decided to go to court against poor compensation and unfulfilled promises.
The F1 venue, which is situated on the sidelines of Yamuna Expressway, is spread over 875 acres, for which land was acquired in 2009. The Jaypee Group of builders, which is developing the F1 track, had then promised to give proper compensation and other infrastructural development schemes to farmers but till date, none of the promises have been fulfilled.
Villagers of Atta, Gunpura, Nawaranpur and Jaghanpur will be going to court next week, demanding better compensation. Natthi Singh, an Atta village elder, said, “Our panchayat has already held a meeting over the issue and decided that we will move court against the F1 track developers. We will be hiring our lawyer in a few days.”
“We are illiterate people. We don’t know the changing policies of Government. In 2009, we were forced to give our land to the Government at throwaway prices. The Government told us to take what was being offered or the land would have been taken away forcefully under the emergency clause and then called Government land, so we had to sell,” Singh elaborated.
For 1 square metre of land, the Government paid them Rs 676. The villagers were paid Rs 6.75 lakh per bigha as compensation.
“They had promised to give a job to one of our family members. They had promised allotment of land in a development area. So much time has passed and we are yet to get those facilities from Jaypee people. We don’t know politics so we have decided to go to court seeking better compensation,” said Singh who had given 15 bighas of his land for the Formula 1 track.
The project, which is all set to host its first high-profile F1 race in October end, is on verge of completion.
Preliminary touches to the track remain and a homologation team of Federation Internationale De I Automobile is scheduled for a final inspection in the second week of August.
This will be the second petition in the court by the villagers, the first one being against the alleged encroachment by the Jaypee project into a temple which stands right next to the track. The Allahabad High Court has already ordered a stay against any further work on the land area of the temple.
Thanks to the project, the villagers have not only lost direct access to this temple but also have been facing a lot of commuting problems for their schoolgirls who now have to trudge almost 7 km one way to reach their school which is located on the other side of the F1 track.
“Because of the project, they have to go round the track to reach their school which means a walk of 14 km up and down. Many of them have stopped going to school because of this problem,” said Vijender Singh of Jaghanpur village.
Atta has a 5,500 population and the other three villages 4,500 each.
Queries on this issue to the Jaypee group were unanswered.
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