Skirting SC order, now liquor vend on canal banks

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 28

Hunting for ways to circumvent Supreme Court’s order of banning the sale of liquor within 500 mt of national and state highways, liquor contractors in Faridkot have taken refuge on the banks of Rajasthan Feeder Canal by opening a vend.

As about 4 km of Amritsar-Bathinda NH runs parallel to the canal and the land adjoining this road is the property of the Rajasthan government, the contractors have erected an unauthorised liquor vend on it putting up a flashy signboard beckoning all. These vend also provides the consumers a place to drink in an ahatta (open air kitchens serving eatables) along Amritsar-Bathinda road. While the Excise and Taxation Department feigned ignorance about the liquor vend operating in this belt, XEN Erinder Singh, Rajasthan Feeder Canal, said the land adjoining the canal is the property of Rajasthan government and using it for any other purpose without their permission was illegal.

“We will initiate legal action for the removal of the vend”, he said. Harman Sidhu, the man behind the booze ban in clubs and pubs along the highways, said it was not only a violation of SC ruling but it is also encroachment on the land of another state.

Sources said not only this liquor vend, many marriage palaces and private colonies have also encroached on such land. Some time ago, such marriage palaces and colonizers were issued notices by the Rajasthan government to pay between Rs 6lakh-7 lakh each as annual user charges and vacate the land. But no one paid up, the sources said. Rajasthan government is owner of over 2 lakh acres of land in Southern-West Punjab after this land was acquired for the construction of a canal in the 60s.

Traversing through Ferozepur, Faridkot, Muktsar districts, the first 167 km of this canal lies in Punjab. A wide strip of this land that runs parallel the canal is lying unused, thus making it vulnerable to encroachment.