TURA, Feb 3 � The land compensation row, which has halted the construction of border fencing in the region, may finally be resolved if indication of the meeting held yesterday in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Tura, is anything to go by.
The meeting was attended by the affected Nokmas of West, South and South West Garo Hills, representatives of GHADC, district administration, BSF as well as the NBCC.
�Finally there was some amount of bonhomie between the parties and the compensation row may get over soon. The earlier assessment of land has been scrapped and a new survey is set to be done to identify the land owners and work out the compensation package,� said Pravin Bakshi, Deputy Commissioner of West Garo Hills. The GHADC has been taken out of the picture after the High Court passed an order to allow for the administration to take over the survey and verification.
�We will be going by the new ordinance on land, passed by the Centre and the Land Acquisition Act. This should help the land owners get a good package for the loss of land due to fencing,� said Bakshi.
The compensation row has been going on for almost a decade after the NBCC objected to the rates demanded by the land owners. Currently, about 2 kms of the border in Garo Hills remains unfenced.
�The Supreme Court has also ordered for the fencing dispute to be resolved as the matter was one of national security. The verification process is set to begin soon and we will look to complete the process as quickly as possible,� added Bakshi. �We will try and complete one village a day to speed up the process,� stated the DC.
