Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1964-1965 — Page 20

this, together with all the group photographs, to the estate staff one or two weeks before the move, so that all rooms can be allocated in advance.

39. In the fourth week the move takes place. If the clearance is a large one, as many as 1,000 persons may move in one day. If necessary, the department provides transport both for the squatters themselves and for their personal belongings. By this time they will have sold their structures to contractors for the demolition value of the materials, and within a few days of the move the clearance area will be free for permanent development.

40. Meanwhile, if cultivation is involved the Cultivation Unit will have completed its survey and prepared schedules of crop values and the area of the cultivation plots. Farmers on what was formerly leased agricultural land are eligible for crop compensation and disturbance allowance, but since October 1957, ex-gratia compensation has also been paid to squatter cultivators who were already in operation at that time. Crop compensation is paid at the rate of the market value of the crops on the day of identification. Ex-gratia compensation in the urban area is 60c. per square foot if the cultivator has been working the land continuously since 1941 and 10c. a square foot for land that has been opened up between 1942 and October 1954. No compensation is payable for land opened up after this date. In the New Territories different criteria apply. Owner-cultivators receive 10c. a square foot however long they have been cultivating the land, while other cultivators, if they are in the Tsuen Wan/Kwai Chung layout area, are paid 60c. a square foot for land opened up before 1941, 10c. if it has been under cultivation for six years before clearance, and 5c. if between two and six years. For the rest of the New Territories the rates are respectively 10c., 10c. and 5c. Disturbance allowance is determined after the cultivator has been interviewed at the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, or in the New Territories, at the District Office. Crop compensation and any other compensation for private land under the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance is paid before the land is finally cleared.

(c) Clearance During the Year

41. As in the past, the department concentrated a considerable proportion of its effort during the year on making available new land for resettlement estates and low-cost housing. 12.40 acres, involving the resettlement of 2,010 people, were cleared for resettlement estates

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