Compensation for acquired lands formula flayed

CUDDALORE:

         The Consumer Federation-Tamil Nadu has faulted the proposal of the Union government to fix compensation for lands to be acquired for industrial purposes or other projects at six times the registered value of the property.

            In identical representations sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, federation executive secretary M. Nizamudeen said the proposed formula would do injustice to farmers.

           A majority of farmers had inherited property from their ancestors and the value at the time of registration might have been much less compared with the present market value. Farmers in Cuddalore had already lost a vast stretch of cultivable lands to big industrial houses, land sharks and middlemen, who forced them to part with the property at rock bottom prices.

          In certain cases, there was intimidation to sell the lands at the prices quoted by the buyers. With land resources going scarce and the farmers remaining at the receiving end, the Centre's formula would be seen as putting undue pressure on them to part with their land for a meagre sum. The Federation urged the Centre to not only fix the compensation at fair level but also make it mandatory for providing suitable relief and rehabilitation to land providers. It also put forth a demand that the land already acquired but not used for constructive purposes be returned to the farmers.

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Government must take over schools that defy RTE Act

In protest:Consumer activists stage a demonstration in Cuddalore on Monday. 

 

CUDDALORE: 

          The members of the Consumer Federation-Tamil Nadu and the Equitable Education Movement staged a demonstration in front of the Collectorate here on Monday, urging the authorities to take over the schools that do not comply with the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

          The speakers said that the matriculation schools were acting under the impression that they were not bound by the rules and therefore had arbitrarily announced that they would indefinitely postpone the re-opening of the schools if their terms were not met in the fixation of tuition fees and other special fees. The RTE Act had clearly stipulated that no school should collect capitation fees in any form. However, in violation of this provision many schools were collecting fees far in excess of the government approved fee structure on the pretext of issuing uniform materials, textbooks, notebooks, diary and so on.

Receipts should be issued

              They said that all the schools must issue due receipts for the money collected from the students under various heads and criminal action should be taken against those school managements that do not comply with the direction. As per the RTE Act the “neighbourhood school” system should be scrupulously adhered to and the students belonging to the economically weaker sections and hailing from the vicinity should be given admission without fail. The speakers put the onus on the Education Department to ensure that this clause was not side-stepped by any school. Similarly, no entrance test or any kind of screening test should be conducted for the students who were seeking admission up to Class VIII.

          No schools should resort to any form of filtering of students by way of removing them from the rolls on the basis of performance, withholding the promotion to next class or refusing transfer certificates. No student should be subjected to any sort of physical and mental discomfiture and all of them should be allowed and encouraged to complete school education. Those who participated included M.Nizamudeen of the Consumer Federation-Tamil Nadu, Lenin of the Equitable Education Movement and others. Notice to school Meanwhile, the Education Department had sent a notice to a matriculation school here directing it to cancel the entrance test scheduled for Tuesday (May 24), failing which a penalty of Rs 25,000 would be imposed on it.

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