Dhading, January 6

The Budhigandaki Hydropower Development Project has set modalities for paying compensation to the project affected locals.

A meeting of project officials headed by Acting Chief District Officer of Dhading, Umesh Kumar Dahal, set 11 modalities for determining the compensation rate. The modalities will cover 13 VDCs of the 15 VDCs that will be displaced by the project.

Organising a press meet at Dhading DAO yesterday, Chairperson of the project Laxmi Prasad Devkota informed about the compensation rate. He said Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh compensation per ropani of land will be provided to the affected locals.

The committee has set four modalities each for field and terrace lands, and seven modalities for residential areas.

As per the modalities, compensation of Rs 5 lakh per ropani of agricultural land and Rs 8 lakh per ropani of land located in highly populated areas has been fixed. The current modality of compensation, however, shall not be applicable to Salyantar’s Aarughat Bazaar and Tripureswor VDC’s Khahare Bazaar.

Devkota said they had adopted the policy of positive discrimination while determining the compensation rate.

This fiscal, the government has allocated Rs 12 billion for paying compensation to the project affected locals.

Of the total amount, Rs 5 billion will be provided by the government while Rs 7 billion will be raised from petroleum infrastructure tax. As many as 50,000 people from 27 VDCs will be affected by the hydropower project.