Illegal occupants in EWS flats hit AIT hard

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 5

Even as the Improvement Trust has raised a wall to block the front of commercial outlets opening in its 211-acre Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar Scheme but encroachments and illegal occupation is rampant. The trust has failed to complete the boundary wall around the scheme area. 

The AIT carved about 1,200 plots and over 600 flats for the economically weaker section (EWS) in the 211-acre scheme. Allottees of the scheme and the association are already pleading with the authorities to deliver on its promise of wall and gate under the scheme, which is running behind schedule.

Majority of the occupants in the EWS flats are unauthorised and forced their entry in the dwellings in absence of boundary wall and lack of security. 

Notably, majority of these illegal occupants are drawing power supply from a transformer which is supplying power to a water tube well. Its cost is being borne by the trust as it received last monthly power bill of Rs 10 lakh for a tube well and on average it receives monthly bill between Rs 4 to Rs 6 lakh. Normally, power bill of a water tube well costs between Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. 

A visit to the spot revealed that a web of wire in an illegal manner was drawing power at the EWS dwellings. 

Besides, a partially built wall is visible in the B-block area of the scheme and bricks of boundary wall around the Improvement Trust’s Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar residential scheme have been stolen at many places. 

Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar Welfare forum president Prem Sagar said absence of the boundary wall encouraged the encroachers to pounce upon the costly land. He said demolished wall led to setting up of a religious shrine on a plot in the B-block. He said a memorandum to complete the wall at the said site was handed over to Local Bodies minister Anil Joshi on October 10, 2013. 

He said earlier no development had taken place in the eight years since the scheme was carved out.

He said since the revised layout plan and technical sanction of the scheme had been approved vide Director town Planning, Punjab, memo no. DTP ((SS)-14/1953 dated October 1, 2014, it was required to re-construct the wall to avoid encroachment which would eventually save the Trust from unnecessary litigation. 

AIT chairman Sandeep Rishi said he would look into the matter of power being pilfered from the water tube well. He said underground power cables have been laid in entire scheme area and the proposal to supply power and operate the same has been submitted to the PSPCL. He said favourable decision from the PSPCL was expected soon. He asserted that after the start of regular power supply it would be easy to identify the illegal occupants as they could not get power connections.

He said a boundary wall at B-block area of the scheme was raised many years ago but it was abandoned mid-way. He said now the trust was again working to complete the wall and behind it lay a new road for adjoining residents of the Maqboolpura area.