West Bengal farmers allege Rs 100 crore fraud in NHAI compensation

In Alipurduar district, NHAI claims it has disbursed Rs 154 crores but farmers move court, saying they have only received 54 crores. The money in some cases has been transferred to imposters, they say.Alipurduar: A motorcade travels on a dusty road flanked by lush paddy fields towards Chengpara village in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal. Officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), local police officers and district administration officials disembark from the vehicle. They scope the area and depart as abruptly as they came.The villager, Sabita Roy (50), claimed that the officials often intimidate them through such visits — as was witnessed by 101Reporters. They want Chengpara's farmers to accept the compensation given by NHAI for their land that was purchased to construct a highway.Chengpara, a village dominated by the ethnic Rajbanshi community, is among the five mouzas or Panchayats involved in a legal wrangle with NHAI over land acquisition for the highway. The four other mouzas include Salsalabari, Bhelukdabari, Chaparerpara and Sovaganj.The NHAI has acquired 170 hectares of land for the extension of a 41-kilometre four-lane highway between Falakata and Salsalabari in the Alipurduar district. It is a part of the east-west corridor of the Golden Quadrilateral connecting Surat in Gujarat to Silchar in Assam. It passes through West Bengal’s rice, jute, and potato fields.The highways authority started acquiring land for the Rs 1,030-crore project in January 2019. However, the farmers have obtained a stay order on the work from the Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court. They claimed they have not received the whole compensation promised by the NHAI.NHAI has claimed to have disbursed Rs 154 crore — Rs 1.20 crore for every 0.1 acre  — for 22.14 acres of land. But farmers claim to have received only 54 crores. Rs 100 crores are unaccounted for.Sabita Roy, a farmer whose land was acquired by the NHAI, has filed a writ petition before the Jalpaiguri bench of the Calcutta High Court saying she hasn't yet been fully compensated (Picture credit - Probir Pramanik)Compensation does not tallyAbout 500 farmers who have given up their land said that the compensation received from NHAI does not tally with a list published by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in a Bengali daily in November 2020.“The land acquisition process by NHAI has been faulty since the beginning,” said Niladri Sen, the counsel of farmer Sabita Roy, who is yet to receive Rs 6 lakh approximately from the government.Sen said that the problem started when the base rate of the acquired land did not match the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013.“The affected farmers received an amount lesser than what they should have received. The compensation that was transferred electronically to the bank accounts of the farmers did not mention what the amount was being paid for,” he said, adding, “When we tallied the bank passbooks, we found that the compensation amounts did not tally with the list published by the Central government.” Imposters in the frayAccording to the secretary of the Krishi Bastu Sangram Committee, Ratan Roy, several people have been compensated by the government for land that they do not own in any of the mouzas.Some farmers claimed that “imposters” have bagged the bulk of compensation released by the NHAI.Such is the case of Sabita Roy whose third tranche of compensation was paid to her impersonator’s account in the State Bank of India in Assam’s Bongaigaon. Roy, who has received Rs 11.01 lakh compensation in her bank in Alipurduras in two tranches said that she was awaiting her third payment of more than Rs 6 lakh.“I have never been to Bangaigaon, let alone open a bank account in the neighbouring state,” she said. “I learned that Rs 5.67 lakh was withdrawn from the said account in Assam by one Sukumar Karmakar, who posed as my father, showing that I was dead.”She said that she was not against giving her land to NHAI, but she expected the government to compensate her fairly.Roy challenged the disbursement claim made by the ministry by filing a writ petition before the Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court on August 5, 2021.The ministry, however, claimed that Sabita Roy was compensated with Rs 17.72 lakh with the third tranche of her payment amounting to Rs 5.67 lakh reaching her on September 24, 2020.Sabita Roy lodged a complaint before the Kotwali police station, but to no avail. She then lodged a written complaint before the Bengal police chief and the Alipurduar district police.Advocate Niladri Sen (left), counsel for Sabita Roy; and Ratan Roy, secretary of the Krishi Bastu Sangram Committee who is spearheading the farmers' agitation (Picture credit - Probir Pramanik)Pinaki Sengupta, the special land acquisition officer and competent authority at the Jalpaiguri district magistrate’s office, directed the Kotwali police to investigate allegations of discrepancy in compensation to Sabita Roy.On September 30, the single bench of the Jalpaiguri bench of the Calcutta High Court directed officials to measure Sabita Roy’s land on October 2, 2021, including building and structure, and assess the compensation she is entitled to according to the rules.Seven others and two farmers groups also filed a writ petition before the Jalpaiguri bench of the Calcutta High Court. The NHAI pleaded for adjournment, which the court refused and set the next date of hearing on November 29, 2021.Krishi Bastu Sangram Committee secretary Ratan Roy said that his mother, Binodini Roy, had received an arbitration notification, saying her land was acquired. But, there were no signs of compensation.Binodini Roy also filed an individual writ petition before Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court. Allegations of bribery and intimidation Some farmers claimed they were coerced to give ‘kickbacks’ between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh to the government officials through brokers to receive the compensation.“I was forced to pay a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to Ratan Mandal — a technical assistant with the Jalpaiguri land reforms office — to get Rs 8 lakh compensation,” alleged Champarani Sarkar (45) who lost 0.8 acres of land to NHAI’s project.Farmer Subal Roy said that he had to give Rs 5 lakh as kickback to the village panchayat to get the compensation amount due to him for his father's land that was acquired by the NHAI (Picture credit - Probir Pramanik)Another farmer Subal Roy said he had to pay a bribe of Rs 5 lakh to the village panchayat head to get compensation for his father’s 0.23 acres of land acquired by the NHAI.The entire compensation package for the five mouzas in Alipurduars Block-II, has been disbursed by the district treasury office, according to Sanjeev Kumar Sharma general manager and project director of NHAI.“We disbursed Rs 154 crore through the Jalpaiguri district magistrate’s land acquisition section,” an official, who did not wish to be named, told 101Reporters.The NHAI has asked aggrieved farmers to contact the special land acquisition officer in Jalpaiguri for matters related to compensation.“Those who have given their land to NHAI have been compensated as per the arbitral base rates. Only a handful of people in Chengpara are creating trouble by stalling the work on the project,” Sharma said.

Bangladesh’s dichotomy of development and deprivation

The Sheikh Hasina regime’s performance will be put to test as the upcoming elections will show who is going to form the government at the centre. The incumbent Prime Minister under her tenure has pushed for economic growth and policy changes that aim towards eradicating poverty by 2021, exactly 50 years after the country’s independence.The World Bank analyzed the 2016-17 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in Bangladesh. It stated that between 2010 and 2016, poverty in Bangladesh fell significantly, especially faster in rural areas. Urban poverty rates declined from 21.3 per cent to 18.9 per cent, while rural poverty decreased from 35.2 per cent to 26.4 per cent. Despite this fall in the poverty rates, the pace at which poverty is reducing is slow. The national poverty rate seems to have fallen from 1.7 percentage points in annually between 2005 to 2010 to 1.2 between 2010 to 2016. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) data shows that as of 2016, the share of the population below the poverty line was 24.3 per cent.Average consumption growth did not keep up with GDP growth, and the pattern of growth became less favourable to the sectors where poor households are engaged. Agricultural growth has become less equal and poverty reducing. More than half of the population is vulnerable to falling back into extreme poverty. “Bangladesh have a better poverty reduction rate in the rural areas as the country has been able to provide better microeconomic finance services and poverty alleviation programmes and have implemented them effectively, says Dr Ajitabh Roy Chaudhury, professor of Economics who has been teaching at the Jadavpur University in Kolkata for the past 37 years. He further added that added that the Bangladesh economy is largely dependent on its readymade garment industry, which is now facing more competition from competitors in South and Southeast Asia. “Strong economic development has increased migration from the rural to the urban areas, however, real wages of urban workers, did not keep pace with the growth,” said Roy Chaudhury.The garment workers in Bangladesh are the lowest paid as per global standards said the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in a survey which was conducted between December, 2017 to March, 2018. The government of Bangladesh decided to raise the minimum wages of the workers by 51 per cent from Tk5,300 ($63) to Tk8,000 ($95) starting December this year. However, dissatisfied garment workers took to the streets on September 14 this year rejecting this increment and demanding a raise.A World Bank report, ‘The Bangladesh Development Update April 2018’, states that Bangladesh is both an inspiration and a challenge for policymakers and practitioners of development. “The country is at an important juncture: with the right policies and timely action, it can move up within the middle-income bracket. The World Bank has identified job creation as the country’s top development priority. Bangladesh needs to create more and better jobs for the 2 million youth entering the job market every year,” said the report. Over the last 25 years, the readymade garment industry--which the largest exporting industry in Bangladesh—played a key role in employment generation, says Dr Mahfuz Kabir, economist and research director at the Dhaka-based Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS)He points out several government initiatives that have improved the conditions of the poor in Bangladesh. “There are a number of major factors for poverty reduction in the rural areas, including the Hasina government’s social protection programme. More than 85 per cent of people in the rural areas have benefited from the programme. Besides, there are a number of other projects like the financial inclusion,” he says.The Bangladesh Bank has launched several schemes to improve financial inclusion. The National Financial Inclusion Strategy for Bangladesh (NFIS-B) is being drafted by Business Finance for the Poor in Bangladesh (BFP-B) programme. The BFP-B programme, chaired by the Governor of the Bangladesh Bank, is a facility which promotes small businesses by improving their credit-worthiness.The government of Bangladesh has the Access to Information (a2i) programme which focuses on digital inclusion by working in the financial sector while also promoting e-governance. The Hasina government in 2009 introduced the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ strategy to use the internet as a tool to achieve development goals. Kabir also speaks about how banks have opened several branches in remote areas and appointed agents to incorporate people into the banking system. “The government has given huge thrust on mobile financial inclusion for money transfers. Village shopkeepers and buyers are increasing their use of mobile transfers. More than 400 crore taka is transferred through mobile transfers every day. This has a huge impact and the rural economy is very vibrant,” says Kabir.In the fiscal year 2017-18, the GDP of Bangladesh reached its highest at 7.86 per cent while in 2010, the GDP was 5.57 per cent, reveals the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Kabir says that this number will grow even further and expects it to reach 8.25 per cent to 8.3 per cent.While the income growth, human development and vulnerability reduction efforts to date have improved, Bangladesh faces daunting challenges with more than 22 million people still living below the poverty line and almost 12.9 per cent experience extreme poverty, states the World Bank report.World Bank estimates that almost 77 per cent of Bangladesh’s working population lives in rural areas. Out of these, about 87 per cent of the population is dependent on agriculture for at least some portion of their earnings and poorer households derived most of their income from the sector. Therefore, a more developed agriculture sector can be a huge driver for economic progress in the country.But, agricultural growth has slowed down after 2010. The agriculture output grew at 3.4 per cent annually between 2011 and 2016 while it was 4.5 per cent between 2000 to 2010. While in the same time period, industrial growth was 9.5 per cent (2011-2016), almost two per cent higher than 7.4 per cent (2000-2010).An Oxfam report highlighted how financial inequality was prevalent in Bangladesh and the country ranked 148th out of the 157 countries surveyed. The report pointed out that inequality can hamper economic growth and hinder the fight against poverty in addition to increasing social tensions.The Rohingya crisis is another factor which has given rise to economic challenges within the country. Almost 688,000 Rohingya refugees arrived in Cox’s Bazar and have immediate needs like shelter, food, sanitation, water among others, which need to be attended to. Despite several steps towards progress, there is still a plethora of challenges that lay ahead. As Bangladesh goes for polls, it would be interesting to see how the government that comes to power would tackle these challenges and pave the road towards development leaving no one behind.

Sheikh Hasina’s fight against Islamic terror might help her keep power in Bangladesh

Siliguri, West Bengal: The zero-tolerance policy adopted by the Bangladesh Prime minister Sheikh Hasina's government to counter violent extremism to prevent the country from becoming a terrorist “safe haven” would play a major role in bringing Awami League back to power.Apart from the noticeable socio-economic growth track, what is favourable for Hasina’s comeback is her government’s “zero-tolerance” policy to counter violent extremism. She has also positioned the Awami league as a secular nationalist party, emphasizing on its prosecution and execution of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who were found guilty of war crimes during the Liberation war in 1971.The government’s main focus had been on a “quick-fix” strategy to curb terrorism, they say, until the attack on the popular Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood on July 1, 2016, which led to the massacre of more than 20 hostages, most of them foreigners. It is termed as one of the deadliest attacks in Bangladesh’s history.This, after a series of killings of secular bloggers, writers, publishers, cultural activists and politicians since 2013, that led many to believe that Bangladesh was losing its war against terror, says Dr Smruti S Pattanaik, a senior fellow at the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), who has been following studying Bangladesh for more than two decades.Experts say Bangladesh has been susceptible to religious extremism, even though terrorist attacks appear to have declined in the past two years. The only other major incidents include the armed attack during Eid prayers at the Sholokia Mosque that killed three people on July 8, 2016, and three botched-up suicide bomb attacks in March, 2017.Hasina, realizing the threat to her and her government, is committed to the fight against terrorism and radicalization, and has managed to get wider public support from across the political spectrum and civil society, adds Pattanaik.According to a US State Department's Country Report on Terrorism, 2017, since Holey Artisan Bakery attack, at least 79 suspected radicals have been killed and more than 150 others arrested in an aggressive anti-militancy crackdown. To support counter terrorism, the Bangladesh government also enacted the country’s first anti-terrorism law in 2009, which was amended in 2013. Moreover, to cripple terror at the heel, the government also formulated the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012.“Bangladesh, a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, and with the central bank and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit,  is leading the government’s efforts to counter the financing of terrorism,” the report says.“The carefully targeted arrests have visibly weakened the most threatening organizations in the country and reduced the danger of terrorist attacks. The government also imposed bans on six groups, including home-grown terror groups like Harkat-ul-Jihad Bangladesh, Ansar-ul-Bangla Team and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh,” explains Dr Pattanaik.Development indicatorsBangladesh’s per capita income growth has risen to 6.2%, according to figures released by the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects (GEP), 2018. This figure is higher than the 5.4% average compared to developing countries, based on the same report.Bangladesh - the eighth most populous country in the world - has as many 165 million citizens, and is growing rapidly. Its economic growth reached 7.2% last year and has exceeded 6% for two straight decades, lifting 50 million people out of extreme poverty in the process, according to a report by the Centre for Research and Information, Bangladesh.Hasina's strong rule brought political stability to Bangladesh, enabling it to make noticeable socio-economic progress over the past 10 years, says Dr Arifin, former vice-chancellor of Dhaka University, adding - “Hasina has managed to overcome political and fundamentalist challenges that were also faced by her predecessor Khaleda Zia, with a different outlook and vision. Bangladesh is listed to become a middle-income country by 2024, provided that we maintain the current socio-economic development trajectory.”Bangladesh is the second largest exporters of garments in the world, running into billions of dollars annually, based on data from the International Trade Statistics of the World Bank, 2014. Hasina is also betting big on a self-financed 20 km-long $3.9 billion railroad bridge project on the mighty Padma River, expected to be a major turnaround for South Asia’s youngest nation.The small nation, once written off as a “basket case” by former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, is on the verge of completing its biggest-ever infrastructure project all alone, says Dr Shafiul Alam from Dhaka University. “It will be a game-changer for Bangladesh’s economy, a great boost to its national pride and a major poll plank for Prime Minister Hasina,” he says.Hasina’s fate, however, hinges in the hands of its young voters - about 23.5 million of the 104 million-strong electorate, aged between 18 and 30, according to latest figures released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).Former Bangladesh election commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Dr M Sakhawat Hussain says, “Though it is too early to say which side the first-time voters and other young voters are going to tilt, this segment, which has been ignored by political groups, will be the deciding factor as even a few hundred votes may work in the winner's favour.”Bangladeshi youngsters want a stable future and they will carefully consider promises of political parties before voting, adds Alam.A united, yet weak oppositionSome analysts say that the ruling party is facing a relatively united opposition for the first time in more than 10 years.The contest has been thrown open, they say, with the formation of an opposition alliance - the Jatiya Oikya Front - which includes the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and other smaller opposition parties. It is being led by former president Badruddoza Chowdhury and former Awami League foreign and law minister Kamal Hossain, both of whom are contesting polls this year.Bangladesh watchers, however, say if infrastructure development, economic growth and the “zero-tolerance” policy adopted by the Hasina government to counter violent extremism and prevent the country from becoming a terrorist “safe haven”, are taken as yardstick, then the Bangladeshi voters have no better option than to vote the Awami League back to power.The opposition’s unity will polarize the political narrative into Awami League versus the rest, but it has no consensus on a candidate for prime minister, or a vision to match Hasina’s, says Dr Arifin - “Bangladesh’s socio-economic progress is robust, its entrepreneurial and grassroots economy is among the fastest growing in Asia, in Hasina’s 10-year tenure, which will work in her favour.”The Muslim-dominated country’s political narrative revolves around two major parties, the Awami League and BNP, both controlled by two powerful women and bitter rivals - Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia - who between each other, have alternately ruled South Asia’s youngest country for decades.However, Khaleda Zia’s indictment on October 29 raised her prison sentence from three to 10 years. Facing 37 cases, including 2004’s grenade attack on Hasina, Zia has been barred from contesting polls, while her son and political heir, Tarique Rahman, is now a fugitive from justice, living in exile in London after a life sentence - this predicament has left the BNP leaderless, and many believe that it may limit their electoral prospects.