Katni : A team comprising of Medha Patkar, Dr. Sunilam, Adv. Aradhana Bhargava, Jasvinder Singh, Kamla Yadav, Ramashray Yadav, Raghvendra Singh, Ravindra Singh, and others met villagers of village Bujbuja Khurd where land is being acquired by Welspun company for thermal power plant.
It has been found that two villagers have already committed suicide to oppose the land grab in their area and also threatened the government of burn themselves n case their land is snatched. Women of Bujbuja are fighting tirelessly against the company.
People of village Bujbuja claimed that Welspun company forcibly acquired the land and deposited the compensation money in fake bank accounts.
The company is continuously stopping the villagers from cultivating the land. Around 450 families are going to be affected of which 60 families including tribals are displaced due to Bansagar Dam. Previously, the Gram Sabha rejected the proposal at the first instance but it has been ignored by the government.
The Welspun Company has proposed to build a thermal power plant of 1980 MW capacity for which they want to acquire 2400 acres of land which got reduced to 1600 acres. A total of 582.25 acre of land has been acquired of which 314.6 acre of land belongs to the residents of village Bujbuja and Dokariya.
They have also got the water access approval from Bansagar Dam. There are many technical faults in EIA report submitted by Welspun and project site is also only 10 kilometers away from the buffer zone of Bandavgarh National Park, which can face ecological damage due to drainage of effluents coming out of power plant through Mahanadi River.
