Protesting villagers end dharna

Our Correspondent

Nurpur, August 29

The indefinite protest dharna of residents of Paral gram panchayat in mand area of the Indora Assembly constituency was called off yesterday following the intervention of the local administration.

The agitating villagers, led by Zila Parishad member Murid Hussain, had been staging a dharna on Paral Chowk and blocking traffic on the Paral-Malkana link road since Friday against the plying of multi-axel trucks loaded with crushed stone material of a local stone crusher unit on the village road. The material is being transported to Punjab through Paral-Thakurdwara via Malkana link road which is in bad shape and local residents had been demanding a ban on the plying of these loaded vehicles on the village road from Mand-Miyan to Riyal via Paral built under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY).

The police had registered cases against the protesters for blocking the road during a protest demonstration yesterday. The local administration today swung into action and Indora tehsildar Gaurav Mahajan reached the spot and heard the problems of agitating villagers who were opposing the plying of multi-axel vehicles on the village road, which passes through private land of local residents.

In this connection, the tehsildar told The Tribune that following a public outcry the administration had imposed a ban on the plying of loaded multi-axel vehicles on the village road after having an interaction with the owner of the stone crusher. Intriguingly, the state government had given permissions and clearances for setting up the stone crusher in this mand area legally requisite for this purpose but poor condition of the road and opposition by local residents to the plying of heavy vehicles could hamper the transportation of extracted material like crushed stone and sand.

Meanwhile, Prem Kumar Dogra, Assistant Engineer, PWD, Indora subdivision, clarified that the Paral-Malkana link road had the maximum capacity of plying of heavy vehicles of nine tons whereas loaded vehicles were between 50 to 80 tonnes.