Civil-defence meet held to resolve land exchange issue

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, February 2

The district administration of Sirmaur will explore the possibility of providing 112 bigha to the defence authorities in lieu of surrendering 300-m defence lan, which was an impediment in completing a five-km Banogdhar-Kyari Road.

Since the requisite 112 bigha contiguous stretch of non-forest land was difficult to be found in the district, a proposal to provide this land in some other district would be explored.

A meeting convened under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner (DC), Sirmaur, Lalit Jain, took a significant decision in this regard to end this stalemate as the completion of the road was awaited since decades.

After deliberating on this issue along with the defence officials at a meeting held at Nahan today, it was decided to explore this option.

The DC informed that a sum of Rs 10 lakh had already been incurred on constructing this road under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sarak Yojana, but work was stuck up due to a 300-m defence land. People of as many as 12 villages, Jabbal-ka-Bagh, Jalapadi, Ramkundi, Simbalbara, Rorrawali, Ladli, Gadda Dharkyari, Bubbidhar, Bikram Kainsal, Majholi, Kotdi, Gadpedla and Bhalgo, as well as the residents of Ward Number 12 of Nahan were badly affected by the non-completion of this road.

It is worth mentioning that the local MLA and Speaker Vidhan Sabha, Dr Rajiv Bindal, had met the Defence Minister in Delhi on January 19 and submitted relevant papers concerning this issue to find an early solution.

Bindal said faulty land settlement executed by the Land Settlement Department about 45 years ago had led to this land dispute between the civilians and the defence authorities in Nahan .

Though the issue had been raised several times with the defence authorities, no solution had come forth. It had also been deliberated upon with former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar following which the defence authorities had agreed to transfer the land if they were provided a substitute land in lieu by the state government.

Dr Bindal, in his recent meeting with the Defence Minister, had urged her to speed up the process so that an early solution could be chalked out. However, providing 112 acre in exchange was a Harculean task for the state as finding such a huge stretch of contiguous land at a location suitable to the defence authorities was not an easy task.

Though the issue had also figured in the civil-military liaison meet, the availability of a suitable land had acted as a deterrent in resolving the issue, said Deputy Commissioner Lalit Jain.