Nilphamari Correspondent :
Agitated land owners of three villages of Parbotipur upazila whose lands were acquired for construction of Bogra irrigation canal under second phase of Teesta Irrigation Project stormed the project site on Monday and stopped the construction work demanding the fair price of their land and vowed to continue their agitation until their demands were met.
Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) sources in Nilphamari division, the monitoring and supervising authority of the work informed that a team of BWDB men under guidance of section officer Shahjahan Ali went to the construction site at Purbo Huglipara village of the upazila with necessary machineries and manpower on Monday morning .
Section officer of BWDB, Shahjahan Ali alleged that as soon, they started digging work for Bogra irrigation canal within the area which was demarked earlier, a group of angry locals comprising of 200-250 men and women from Chander Danga, Purbo Huglipara and Darikhamar villages stormed the site and compelled the BWDB officials and workers to stop the work.
He also said that the villagers stood in front of the running bulldozers demanding payment of total price of their land requisioned long time ago in order to making the canal.
” In the face strong opposition of the locals’, we are compelled to stop work and came back our office with all equipments,” he added.
Affected landowners like Moshiur Rahman, Shamsul Huque, Mominur Rahman, Mortuza Ali, Alfazuddin, Abdul Fattah, Momeza Khatun, Armina Begum and others of the area said that authority requisitioned our land without paying the justified price though we stopped cultivating our land.
On Monday , BWDB men came to start the construction work of Bogra canal on our land making us deprived of payment and for this fact we opposed the work.
We would not allow BWDB authority to start the work in future until we are paid as per settled commitment, they told further.
Abdus Shahid, Acting Executive Engineer of BWDB’s Nilphamari division informed that as per existing rules, 57.69 acres of land in Rampur mouja and 13.60 acres in Khamar Jagannathpur mouja were requisitioned in middle of last year in favour of the project.
The requisitioned area were also demarked and also handed over to us in presence of locals as BWDB already paid about Tk 28 crores in the fund of concerned department of district administration.
Regarding the complain of the landowners, we are making contact with higher authority, Executive Engineer said.
