MLA opposes heritage status for Palwal rly station

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Palwal. June 22

Local Congress MLA Karan Singh Dalal has hit out at the state government for seeking heritage status for the local railway station.

Expressing surprise over a recent demand taken up by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at a meeting in New Delhi, Dalal said that the heritage status would result in a kind of full stop to any development work at this historic railway station.

It may be recalled that the police had detained Mahatma Gandhi from the railway station in April 1919, when was on his way to Punjab to take part in a meeting of the Non-Cooperation Movement. A six feet statue of Gandhi was installed here in October 2013.

Claiming that the heritage status would stall all kinds of development works at the station, Dalal said that the state government ought to take up the move of upgrading the station to a state-of-the-art railway station if the government was serious about paying homage to the Father of the Nation.

He said establishment of a national-level memorial would make it an important tourist destination.

Stating that overall development had eluded the district in the past three-and-a-half years, he said the infrastructure of the railway station had been lying in a shambles.