New Delhi, September 16: Rejecting the Left Front’s charge that Railways was acquiring land forcibly, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said her department will not acquire land “forcibly” and will purchase them if people come forward to sell.
“If there is a dispute we will not acquire forcibly. If the people give their land then we will purchase it,” she told reporters in New Delhi.
Banerjee also accused the Left Front in West Bengal of “misleading the people” on the issue and assured that the Railways will never acquire land forcibly.
On the Dedicated Freight Corridor, she said the JICA loan to the project was sanctioned when Lalu Prasad was the Railway Minister during the previous UPA tenure which was supported by the Left.
CPI(M) MP Basudev Acharya was the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways.
“That time, they (Left) did not oppose it. Now, they are opposing it,” she said.
She dismissed as false reports that the government was acquiring 2,500 acres of land for the Dedicated Freight Corridor in Uttar Pradesh and said Railways need only 140 acres.
—Agencies