Shal­iza Has­sanali

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 120 acres of land in Pi­ar­co has been of­fered to four D'Abadie farm­ers, whose crops were bull­dozed last month by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC). The farm­ers De­ochan Sam­path, Ja­son Kan­ick, Ar­joon De­bis­ingh and Vin­da Ma­haraj looked at the pro­posed site, lo­cat­ed on the west­ern end of the old air­port run­way in the pres­ence of Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har and pres­i­dent of the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of T&T Dhano Sookoo. On East­er Mon­day, HDC de­mol­ished sev­er­al acres of crops at Pineap­ple Smith in D'Abadie and Egypt Trace, Ch­agua­nas which led to a se­ries of protests and calls for Mooni­lal to apol­o­gise and even re­sign. In their brief talks with the min­is­ters, the D'Abadie farm­ers ques­tioned if the HDC could build the hous­ing es­tate in Pi­ar­co. "We did not get a re­sponse to that ques­tion when the mat­ter was raised," said one of the four farm­ers.

Fol­low­ing a pri­vate dis­cus­sion with the farm­ers and min­is­ters, Bharath promised to take to Cab­i­net in two weeks the is­sue of land tenure to give farm­ers some peace of mind. Com­pen­sa­tion for up­root­ed crops, Bharath said will be paid at mar­ket prices. By to­mor­row, Bharath said the fig­ures for com­pen­sa­tion should be on his desk. As­sess­ment for com­pen­sa­tion, Bharath said, was done by his min­istry and the af­fect­ed farm­ers, which he promised will be fair and trans­par­ent. Mooni­lal said com­pen­sa­tion and re­lo­ca­tion are done with­in a pol­i­cy frame­work by the Gov­ern­ment. "How­ev­er, if crops are de­stroyed or cleared be­cause of a pub­lic good, there is com­pen­sa­tion, and the build­ing of homes, of course, that is a pub­lic good." Mooni­lal said once the D'Abadie farm­ers have shift­ed lo­ca­tion, the HDC will be­gin con­struc­tion of its hous­ing es­tate, which should be com­plet­ed in two to three years' time with one year be­ing al­lowed for al­lo­ca­tion.

"There is no im­me­di­ate rush at this mo­ment be­cause we have an on-go­ing process of di­a­logue. The farm­ers have been very un­der­stand­ing and rea­son­able in the cir­cum­stances. We will hold our hand and let the process takes its time. We are hap­py that the mat­ter has con­clud­ed this way." Mooni­lal cred­it­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar for halt­ing the bull­doz­ing of lands and help­ing reach an am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion. Pi­ar­co was the sec­ond pro­posed site the min­is­ters had toured yes­ter­day. The first was Soogrim Trace, Jern­ing­ham. Mooni­lal al­so gave the as­sur­ance that bull­doz­ing of farm­ers' land will not hap­pen again say­ing that "this is not a com­pe­ti­tion be­tween any sec­tor or sec­tors." Mooni­lal made it clear that there has al­ways been a joint na­tion­al ob­jec­tive be­tween min­istries. "So the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty will be in the best po­si­tion to de­liv­er on their man­date to feed the na­tion, while the HDC will en­sure that we house the na­tion. I think it is a win-win sit­u­a­tion we have ar­rived at." He said that a con­sul­ta­tive ap­proach will be tak­en be­tween the HDC, Food Pro­duc­tion Min­istry and farm­ers in ac­quir­ing farm lands ear­marked for hous­ing in the fu­ture.

On Tues­day, Mooni­lal said the HDC, of­fi­cials from the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­istry and farm­ers' rep­re­sen­ta­tives will make a site vis­it in Princes Town- an­oth­er area ear­marked for hous­ing in an at­tempt to have di­a­logue with per­sons oc­cu­py­ing those lands. Bharath said in both in­stances, the farm­ers have agreed in prin­ci­ple that the pro­pos­als of com­pen­sa­tion and re­lo­ca­tion have been "Ac­cept­ed with no grudges borne. They come to re­alise that this is in their best in­ter­est." He said Pi­ar­co was ide­al be­cause of its lo­ca­tion and easy ac­cess. With re­gards to the land in Pi­ar­co, Bharath ad­mit­ted that there was one prob­lem- flood­ing, promis­ing that by ear­ly next week a team will be out to look at the land and try to mit­i­gate the flood­ing. "The min­istries will move swift­ly to bring this mat­ter to an end," Bharath said.