Capital punishment

I was 45 when the government acquired my village in 2002 to build Nava Raipur. To this day, my family has not received proper rehabilitation or compensation. Over the past 25 years, we have gone from being farmers to daily-wage labourers, and struggle to secure two square meals a day,” says Ghasiaram, now 70.

Ghasiaram is a resident of Jhanjh, a village displaced to make way for Chhattisgarh’s new capital Nava Raipur Atal Nagar. In 2002, the Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) decided to acquire 23,742 hectares (ha) across 41 villages, about 17 km southeast of the state’s current capital Raipur, to facilitate this project. By 2022, NRDA acquired about 13,000 ha, says Kamta Prasad Ratre, secretary of Capital-Affected Farmers’ Welfare Committee, an association of people displaced by the project. “The number of families affected by the project is estimated to be over 50,000. The total number of people affected could be 250,000, assuming each family has five members,” Ratre adds.

Ratre says that since 2011, more than 6,000 farmers have filed petitions in the High Court of Chhattisgarh in Bilaspur “seeking fair compensation and rehabilitation for their land acquired forcibly and through fraudulent means by NRDA”. In 2018, the farmers undertook a 112-km protest march from Raipur to Bilaspur to file their lawsuits, challenging the government’s methods of land acquisition.

In 2002, the state government of the Indian National Congress laid the foundation stone for Naya Raipur at Pauta village. Sixty-one villages in the vicinity were initially incorporated into the project. However, in 2005, the new state government of the Bharatiya Janata Party modified the plan, narrowing its scope from 61 villages to 41. The government imposed a ban on the sale and purchase of land in 27 of these 41 villages. Ratre, however, says that immediately after the announcement of the new capital in 2002, restrictions were placed on land across all 61 villages—stretching from Jaistambh Chowk (considered the heart of Raipur city) to the boundaries of these villages—prohibiting the buying or selling land. Later, Ratre adds, the government maintained these restrictions in only 27 of these villages. Following a prolonged struggle by farmers, the government agreed in 2022 to limiting the restriction to just 14 of the 27 villages.

The state government began purchasing land from farmers in 2006, says Ratre, though the project officially commenced in 2008. “It used coercive means in villages that did not readily agree to sell land. For instance, in 2012, the government issued a notice to Rico, one of the villages within the affected zone, stipulating that all farmers must voluntarily surrender their land through mutual agreement, failing which their land would be compulsorily acquired,” says Rupan Chandrakar, president of the New Capital-Affected Farmers’ Welfare Committee. “The farmers’ agitation began in the wake of this notice. The terms were determined unilaterally. And the government began purchasing land without first announcing a rehabilitation policy,” he adds.

The sale of village land in 2006 was carried out at a rate of Rs 12.37 lakh per hectare, a figure that included compensation, says Ratre. In July 2009, when NRDA was offering Rs 14.75 lakh per hectare, the government invoked an emergency clause, granting itself the authority to acquire land within just 15 days of issuing a notice through the district collector, he adds. Amritlal Joshi, a resident of Baroda village, says that residents were coerced into selling their land to NRDA under this specific provision, compelling them to accept a rate of Rs 4.30 lakh per hectare. Land near their village, which is not subject to such restrictions, is being sold for R1 crore to Rs 2.5 crore per acre (1 acre equals 0.4 ha). “What kind of justice is this? It is nothing short of absolute dictatorship,” says Joshi. Chandrakar highlights that NRDA later leased the acquired land at Rs 1.14 crore per hectare for residential use and Rs 1.82 crore per hectare for retail purposes.

NRDA officials, however, claim that the revenue generated in this manner is reinvested in the project, says Ratre, adding that the committee learnt this through a query filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Down To Earth contacted Awanish Kumar Sharan, chief executive officer of Raipur Development Authority, but did not receive a response.

So far, NRDA has construcetd two colonies for the displaced: the first in Jhanjh-Nawagaon, comprising 20 single-room units, and the second in Rakhi village, consisting of about 200 houses of 35 sq m each, where 318 families were rehabilitated by 2010, says Chandrakar. “I was allotted a single room. I have lived there for the past 15 years with my family of 13 members. There is no sewage system, nor any provision for drinking water,” says Ghasiaram.

According to the authority’s master plan, the capital city is slated to be fully constructed by 2031, and will feature six-lane roads, elite housing societies, a Vedanta hospital, an international cricket stadium, a botanical garden and four forested area. It will also include a new Secretariat and Legislative Assembly. While the roads, Assembly building and stadium are complete, local people say it is highly unlikely that the project will be complete by 2031, given the pace of construction. Even government officials, though unofficially, acknowledge that the project is unlikely to be finished before 2040.

This article was originally published in the May 16-31, 2026 print edition of Down To Earth