MAYILADUTHURAI: CPM functionaries were arrested on Monday for staging protests across the Mayiladuthurai district over compensation for the land acquired to expand the NH45A stretching between Villupuram and Nagapattinam.
Farmlands have been acquired in Mayiladuthurai over the past three years for road expansion. The government has been compensating the farmers who owned the lands. However, some of them have flagged the compensation as insufficient.
With the arrest of the party members, the protests spread to other parts of Mayiladuthurai and Kuthalam and Sirkazhi. S Durairaj, district secretary of the CPM farmers wing in Mayiladuthurai, said, “The NHAI employed earthmovers to prune trees and remove fences along the lands. The farmers have not been compensated for the most part.”
Farmers from villages such as Akkur, Kathirupu, Sembathanirupu, Thalaichankadu, Sangirupu, Poonthazhai, Nataraja Pillai Savadi, Radhanallur and Thirukadaiyur have been demanding adequate compensation. Farmers sowing crops in lands leased out from Dharmapuram Aadheenam, too, have been demanding compensation, as NHAI allegedly paid the Aadheenam rather than the tenants. P Srinivasan, CPM’s Mayiladuthurai district secretary, said the tenant farmers suffered losses.