NASHIK: Savarkar flyover at Bytco Chowk on Nashik Road turned 21 years old. However, the owners of the land for the bridge have not yet received any new money. The land could have been acquired for Rs 5 lakh 21 years ago. The same land is now likely to cost Rs 30,000 per square meter.
The Nashik Municipal Corporation is converting land for public works. For this, the amount of land acquisition is as per the government rules. At Nashik Road, when it was decided to build a flyover at Bytco Chowk. At that time, the then commissioner Krishnakant Bhoge decided to take the lands of ten people for the flyover.
In just five lakhs, everyone would have been compensated. The account would have been settled. However, the corporation has not paid them yet. So the landowners went to court. The court fixed the price at Rs 15,000 per square meter, which was later doubled under the new Land Acquisition Act of 2013. It was then ordered to pay interest at 9 per cent in the first year and 15 per cent thereafter.
It has been challenged by the Municipal Corporation but the land owners have not received a single penny yet. The NMC may win the case but it will have to pay the sum sooner or later. As the landowner have the letter give to then by the Municipal Corporation, which has promised them in writing to pay while taking the land. They have proof of that. The land that which could have been acquired for five lakhs, now, the NMC will have to pay more than the amount for which the flyover was built.
