Gandhinagar farmers to get more compensation for land acquired by NHAI

In an important judgment, a bench of the Gujarat High Court has asked the union government to provide higher compensation to 69 land owners whose land had been acquired by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). They will now get four times more compensation than that decided earlier by the authority.

The matter was related to land owners, mostly farmers of Lavarpur, Firozpur and Prantiya villages of Gandhinagar district, whose lands were acquired by Land Acquisition Officer (LAO) for road widening work on National Highway No-8 between Gandhinagar to North Gujarat. The government had provided them compensation by listing them in the urban area, however, they demanded compensation according to rural area.

“The government gives double compensation than the market rate if land falls under urban area and four times as much if the land falls under rural area. The government considered our land under urban area as it was covered under Gandhinagar Urban Development Authority (GUDA),” said Saurabh Amin, counsel appeared for the land owners.

“We have challenged two notifications of the government and the HC allowed our plea by holding that land under the urban development authority should be termed as rural land and it liable to get compensation accordingly,” he added.