CM’s projects for villagers facing eviction notices

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Sishwal (Hisar), June 24

Even as the district administration has served notices while terming residents as encroachers on government land, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced several development projects for Pirawali, C block Chikanwas and Dhandoor in the district.

The residents of five villages, Pirawali, C block Chikanwas, Dhandoor, Beed Babran and Diggi Taal, had been on dharna for the last 29 days, demanding regularisation of their houses.

They had been served notices by the administration under the Haryana Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Land Recovery) Act, 1972, terming their possession of land as wrongful and unauthorised.

The Chief Minister, who called a meeting of panchayats in Sishwal village during ‘mahagram sampark’ campaign, announced projects worth crores.

These included a panchayat ghar in Pirawali, a veterinary hospital and gram sachivalaya in C-block Chikanwas, a boundary wall and five rooms of a government school, park, ‘vyayamshala’ and other works worth Rs 1 crore in Dhandoor village.

After making the announcements, the Chief Minister asked the sarpanches of these village to get up, but none was present in the meeting. The Chief Minister than asked a block samiti member to inform the panchayats about the development works.

When contacted, sarpanch of C block Chikanwas Ram Swaroop said that except a primary school and anganwari centre, the village had no other facility. “We are not considered for development works due to the case of land ownership,” he said.

Block samiti member Anutosh Bhukkal of Beed Babran village said that the officials did not carry out works due to the land dispute. A grant for Rs 5 lakh for construction of Ambedkar Bhawan lapsed last year as officials refused to construct the building, he said.

“Despite a prolonged agitation and several meetings, we have no word from the administration. Local BJP leaders toured the villages on Saturday, urging people to attend the Chief Minister’s function while promising to find a solution to the land dispute,” he said.

Manoj Sharma, sarpanch of Dhandoor village, who did not attend the meeting, said that the announcements indicated that the government was positive towards the demand for regularisation of possession.

29 detained

The police detained 29 persons from two places on the suspicion of trying to create trouble. A group from the Barwala block was detained for planning to show black flags. In the other incident, some persons from the Adampur segment were detained on similar grounds.

Case history

Five villages came up after then Punjab Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon allotted agricultural land on lease to 425 families of freedom fighters in 1955. The government earmarked 235 acres for residential purposes for the beneficiaries. Later, possession of agricultural land was regularised, but no action was taken to regularise houses.