CPI objects to Sundram’s statement on tea gardens

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 15

Senior Communist Party of India (CPI) leader and a member of the Chai Bagan Sangharsh Samiti Samar Bhandari has termed the statement by Meenakshi Sundram, vice-chairman of the Mussoorie–Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA), regarding encroachments in tea estate “objectionable and contradictory”. 

Sundram had said that the only way to safeguard tea estates from encroachment was to build a smart city there. Bhandari in a statement said it was “strange that a senior official, who is responsible for removing encroachment, is himself admitting encroachment”. 

He said if encroachmenttook place in Dehradun, it was the responsibility of the MDDA to check such illegal works. The state government under the aegis of the MDDA has proposed to build a smart city on 300 acres of tea garden in Dehradun, which is being opposed by tea garden workers, political parties and environmentalists.