Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s son Shailesh Patil says he doesn’t want to discuss the Rs 149-crore N V Distilleries of which he and his wife are directors and which, as reported in The Sunday Express today, got clearances for expansion from the Union Environment Ministry, clearances strongly opposed by the Haryana Pollution Control Board. “I feel very satisfied that such an investment in a rural area provides employment opportunities for poor farmers.”

These words hardly find an echo here as you listen to the litany of complaints that villagers and panchayat pradhans have: from reneging on employment promises — just about 10 jobs have gone to locals so far — to threat and intimidation to get additional land, from damage to local water bodies to felling of trees for expansion of the distillery.

The most recent flashpoint is the expansion of an 11-foot-wide unmetalled road that runs for about 2 km to a tarred 31-foot-wide road to facilitate transport of equipment and material to and from the distillery. The expansion of the road required another round of land acquisition, resulting in tension between distillery managers and villagers.

Several villagers allege they were forced to give up their land to make way for the road. Among them is local physician S K Dahri.

Even the police were called in to handle the situation. Dahri told The Indian Express: “Land for widening the road was acquired by the distillery literally with cash in one hand and a fat stick in the other. My land fell on both sides of the road and I too initially resisted selling any part of it. But eventually, I had to give in.”

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