Ranchi, June 5: Godda district administration has asked Adani Group executives to deposit Rs 325 crore to the state exchequer to enable the district administration distribute compensation sums to land donors for the proposed 1,600MW thermal power plant in the face of mounting demands for cash and jobs from villagers.

Adani intends to acquire 917.37 acres for the plant across two revenue circles - Godda and Poreyahat - of the district at nearly Rs 50 lakh per acre.

"The funds are likely to arrive in a day or two. Thereafter, from July 1, we will start distributing compensation to land donors who don't have objections or whose disputes have been settled," Godda DC Bhuvnesh Pratap Singh told this reporter today.

He added they had started receiving objections from prospective land donors from June 1 and would do so this whole month under the norms of Section 11 of Land Acquisition Act, which invites people to air grievances and doubts.

Objections and grievances would be heard under Section 19 of the same Act from July 1, the DC added.

The district administration claimed that contrary to the perception of unwilling land donors, villagers willingly demarcated lands and facilitated geo-mapping teams to verify physical attributes of plots in the face of protests from different quarters, especially JVM's Poreyahat MLA Pradip Yadav, now in Dumka central jail.

But, its problems are not over. Now, the district administration has to scotch unreasonable compensation expectations of villagers, which is creating some hurdles in the land acquisition process.

The Adanis agreed to give nearly Rs 50 lakh per acre to land donors. This apart, the Eastern Coalfields model of compensation has been adopted, wherein one member of every family giving at least 2 acres would get a compensatory job and a family parting with at least one acre would get Rs 5 lakh as cash compensation but no job.

Families donating smaller plots will get proportional cash compensations and land prices.

But, many villagers are learnt to be demanding Rs 5 lakh as compensation per family if no job is given, irrespective of how small the plot is.

In many cases, land donor families have demanded every adult member - aged above 18 - be treated as a separate family unit and given compensatory jobs or Rs 5 lakh as cash compensation irrespective of the size of their land holding.

An advocate at Godda civil court Jeetendra Thakur said many people sought him out every day to seek legal opinion on land donation to the Adanis. "Compensation package norms of land acquisition law are confusing. I advise people to approach high court lawyers," he said.

The proposed Adani power plant at Godda would supply electricity solely to Bangladesh based on an accord inked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is believed the PMO keeps tabs on all developments related to the proposed plant.