Rehabilitation of displaced to be completed by December end

Bhubaneswar, Apr 18 (UNI) Rehabilitation process of people displaced due to the coming up of the Hirakud, Rengali and Samal dams would be completed by the December end, Revenue Minister Manmohan Samal said here today.

The Minister told newspersons here the District Collectors concerned were directed to evolve a comprehensive plan to pay compensation to the displaced people latest by December 2008.

The Minister was speaking to mediapersons after a meeting with the displaced people of 54 rehabilitation villages lying in the districts of Deogarha, Anugul, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda and Baragarha.

Mr Samal said the Revenue Secretary was instructed to coordinate with other departments like Water Resources, Finance and Energy department and prepare out a comprehensive plan within a fortnight to solve the problems related to these departments.

He said the District Collectors were asked to open grievance cells on the first day of every month, listen to the problems of the displaced people and to resolve them.

The Collectos were asked to accord the status of revenue villages to all the rehabilitated villages within a month.

The officials were asked to provide homestead land to the landless on priority basis. Now the government was providing for decimal of homestead land to every landless family, but the process was on to raise it to ten decimal of land, he said.

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