Surya dam evictees in Palghar to get land records within three months

Palghar: Families uprooted by the Surya dam project nearly five decades ago are set to own the land they were resettled on. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced at Hanuman Nagar on Friday that every landholder in Hanuman Nagar and Chandranagar, two resettlement villages in Palghar taluka, will receive a 7/12 land extract within three months. A government resolution granting ownership rights has been issued.

Between 1970 and 1982, some 800 to 1,000 families were moved to the two villages while the dam was being built. Because the technical formalities of their rehabilitation were never completed, residents went without ownership rights and the benefits that come with them. The problem came to a head when part of the villages' land was again being acquired for road and rail links to the Vadhavan port and residents had no records to prove ownership. The state cabinet approved the rights last week.

The event, held under the state government's Seva Sankalp Abhiyan 2026, was attended by guardian minister Ganesh Naik, MP Dr Hemant Savara, tribal development committee chairman Vivek Pandit, the district's MLAs and officials. Fadnavis said other villages in the district whose rehabilitation after various projects remains incomplete would get justice on the same lines.

Projects that leave local people without land, jobs or a share in development cannot be called development, Fadnavis said, adding that the government was committed to giving project-affected people proper rehabilitation, amenities and work. Resettled villages must have good facilities and access to employment, he said, and the government aims to place Palghar among Maharashtra's five most developed districts.

Sources: Loksatta; ThePrint