The decision of the people of ten villages of Upper Siang district, to not claim any land compensation for the construction of highway between Yinkgiong and Bishing, has come as a welcome breeze. Most of the important infrastructural projects of Arunachal Pradesh, especially of roads in the state, have failed due to compensation issue. The Trans-Arunachal Highway (TAH) is still progressing at a snail’s pace because of the controversy over land compensation. The illegal way of claiming compensation money not only puts a brake on development but also defames the image of the state. Therefore, the move of the villagers of Upper Siang district is inspiration and deserves appreciation in the true sense.
The rest of the state can learn a lot from them. If people of the state want development, they have to be cooperative. The duty of the government is to make programmes and policies for the betterment of the state; the duty of citizens is to cooperate with the government in implementation of these policies. It will be unfair to expect the government to do everything. The citizens also will have to extend their support. The government is duty-bound to provide compensation to genuinely affected people, but in our state, people collect compensation money using fraud methods most of the times. This practice of collecting illegal compensation has been exposed in the TAH scam. Now that people of Upper Siang have set an example, and hopefully, the rest of the state will follow suit and extend cooperation in the construction of roads in the state.