Imphal: In a development that could seriously affect its credibility in enforcing its own decrees, a local human rights group has accused the Manipur government of violating its own Act framed to preserve and protect the fast depleting agricultural land of the landlocked state.

Farmers of Yaithibi area of Thoubal district held a protest rally on Sunday at Yaithibi area, fearing losing their fertile fields to the state government’s plan of constructing a 100 acre mega food park, 150 acre of logistic park and 100 acre of Jewellers park in violation of its own decree, “The Manipur Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2014.”  Many farmers were hurt in the police action to disperse the protest resorting to lathi charge and teargas.  

Yaithibi Loukol, Youth’s Forum for Protection of Human Rights (YFPHR) condemned the excessive police action on a group of farmers, protesting against the government bid to acquire 350 acres of agricultural fields in Yaibithi area under Thoubal district.

“Scarcity of food grains has always been a major fear of Manipur. The famous Nupi Lan or the great women’s uprising of 1939 against the British who created a famine by exporting rice from Manipur is a historical pointer. The loss of 82,000 hectares of paddy field to the Loktak Hydro Power Project in the 1980s; the on-going developmental projects like Maipthel Dam, Railway Projects, Kuga Dams destroying thousands of acres of cultivable lands are all glaring proof of mindless encroachment on scarce agricultural land that would eventually  affect food security of the state,” stated the YFPHR President,Kh. Phajaton.

The human rights group president further said that “the present effort towards the acquisition of Yathibi Loukol for the construction of Mega Park, violating the Manipur Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2014 is the latest move to destroy the cultivable paddy land that must be stopped.”

The Forum reminded the Chief Minister of Manipur, N. Biren Singh of his commitment to protect agricultural lands and wetlands for sustainable development and maintaining ecological balance in the state while speaking at interaction programme of local and district level monitoring committees constituted under the Manipur State Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2014, on June 20, 2017.

The human rights forum further added that compensation promised by the government for the acquisition will indirectly threaten sustainable livelihood, food sovereignty and right to food of the people of the district.