Ombudsman to ensure justice to irrigation projects’ oustees

HYDERABAD: The government will soon appoint an ombudsman to function as an independent agency to ensure proper justice to the displaced families of irrigation projects, in respect of compensation payment and resettlement and rehabilitation against the lands and properties lost by them.

Major Irrigation Minister P. Lakshmaiah announced this after declaring open the premises of the newly created Resettlement & Rehabilitation Commissionerate at Buddha Bhavan in Secunderabad on Wednesday.

The Minister said a society would also be formed with oustees and others to expedite the process of compensation payment in coordination with all the connected departments. Impressed by the “ideal R & R policy adopted by the Andhra Pradesh government which was being emulated by other states, World Bank had offered “non-lending technical assistance” to the R & R Commissionerate.

The Minister said a massive sum of Rs. 10,000 crore out of the Rs 1.3 lakh crore of Jalayagnam budget had been set aside for resettlement and rehabilitation.

While the budget provided for R & R under Polavaram project alone was Rs. 4,000 crore, another Rs. 2,000 crore was being spent annually on this head.

Sanjay Jaju, who served as the State’s first R &R commissioner till recently, said specialists from various fields were drafted into the Commissionerate and they included legal experts, habitation and town planning specialists, anthropologists and experts in fisheries, health and micro-finance.