Land owners of Satajan seek compensation before constituting bird park

A CORRESPONDENT

LAKHIMPUR: The land owners having their land at Satajan have opposed the Bird Festival (Pakhi Utsav) to be organized at Satajan located at Pahumara under the auspices of the North Lakhimpur Forest Range Office in association with the Lakhimpur district administration on January 10. The dignitaries of the Satajan Meen Palon Udyan Khetra Samiti disclosed about this opposition by convening a press meet at North Lakhimpur Press Club on Thursday.

Addressing the press meet, president of the organization, Dhaneswar Tamuli Pukan and secretary Uttam Gogoi said that Satajan was not a natural stream or a wetland but it was a water body which came into being with logging water after the construction of the railway line and the Pahumora-Kimin connecting PWD road.

"Though the district administration and various nature loving organizations have attempted to create a bird park at Satajan, the area of government land at the water body is only of 7 bighas and 19 lessas as per the record in Naoboicha Revenue Circle Office. The rest 52 bighas of land is owned by the Railway Department while 39 bighas of land is owned by some farmers having land pattas. In 2002, the Satajan Meen Palon Udyan Khetra Samiti was formed with 14 land owners having land at Satajan and that committee was registered vide Registration No. NL/257/B/42 of 2001-2002. Then the committee began to rear fish in the water taking the 52 bighas of Railway land in liege. Later, the then Deputy Commissioner of the district stopped the fish rearing activities of the committee after an organization, Ranganadi Prakriti Surakshya Samiti filed a proposal to the district administration to constitute a bird park at Satajan. Then the committee filed a case in Gauhati High Court. As per the court's order, the Naoboicha Revenue Circle handed over the individual land to the land owners fixing their boundaries. Following the developments, Ranganadi Prakriti Surakshya Samiti filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the High Court. Satajan Meen Palon Udyan Khetra Samiti defended the case and the High Court instructed the Chief Secretary to compensate the land owners if the bird park is constituted at Satajan by the government. The court also instructed the government to hand over the lands to the land owners within 6 weeks if the bird park is not constituted there," said Dhaneswar Tamuli Phukan in the press meet.

Under such circumstances, the committee demanded the State Government as well as the district administration to compensate the land owners as per the Revenue Act if the bird park was built at Satajan. Otherwise, the committee demanded to hand over the individual lands to the land owners. In this connection, the president of the Satajan Meen Palon Udyan Khetra Samiti showed a letter sent by then Divisional Forest Officer of Lakhimpur to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, in which he wrote that the Satajan wetland area did not have adequate ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphological and natural significance for constituting bird sanctuary, community reserve. Through the press meet, the committee urged the district administration and the State Government to resolve the issue before constituting the bird park at Satajan.

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