Jharia fire rehabilitation project stuck in land protest

Sindri: The Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) is yet to start construction of quarters for families affected by the coal belt's five-decade-old underground fire as villagers at Nipania in Dhanbad are refusing to end their protest against the district administration even after a month.
The protesters at Nipania are claiming that the district administration had "misguided" them and promised them jobs.However, souces in the district administration office said half the land losers have got their compensation money. The villagers are sitting on dharna at the JRDA project site for the past one month and are not allowing the authorities to start construction of houses.
According to Ajay Mahto and Subal Mallick, who are spearheading the agitation, said, "The naïve villagers were misguided. The district authorities told them that they would lose the land and the compensation money if they did not receive the amount".
"The villagers were told that the compensation amount would be deposited in a non-banking organization, which is closed now. If our land is taken away, we will be left with nothing," said Mahto.
Dhanbad DC K N Jha said, "If there was anything wrong, the villagers had a chance to protest under sections 4 and 6 of the land acquisition act. But now when the acquisition process is complete and the villagers have accepted compensation amount, nothing can be done. However, if the villagers find anything illegal, they always have the option to take legal action."
"The district administration would start construction work once a final decision on the proposal for increasing the construction area is taken by the Centre," he added.Dhanbad administration acquired 120.82 acres of land at Nipania in 2009 for construction of 4,000 quarters. Sources in JRDA said about 65% of the villagers have already been compensated.