Gujarat HC rejects PIL for jobs for land losers in Kakrapar Nuclear plant

Surat, 15 December 2013

The Gujarat high court has turned down a PIL by residents of Moticher and Unchamata villages demanding jobs for families whose land had been taken over by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kakrapar in south Gujarat in 1976. The court rejected the PIL on the ground that the petition was filed 24 years after the project took off and nearly 40 years after the land was acquired.

Villagers cited a resolution passed in 1989 that the project-affected families will be benefited by granting members jobs in the plant. They were offered Rs 11,000 per acre towards compensation but the high court had increased the amount to Rs 40,000.

The high court rejected the demand observing that the landowners had been compensated for the acquisition and the NPCIL is not a ‘state’ in the sense that it is bound to give jobs. There is no right to the successors of the original landowners to get employment for all time to come.