Kant Enclave residents shocked beyond words

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, September 12

With the Supreme Court ordering demolition of illegal constructions in Kant Enclave nestled in the Aravalli Hills, the occupants — mostly retired persons — are feeling stranded as they have no other place to shift.

“I am shocked and depressed,” says PK Gandhi (80), a resident of house number C-115 in Kant Enclave. “I built this house 20 years ago with all I had got at the time of retirement. Till Wednesday, I had been living peacefully. The Supreme Court’s order has shocked me. I don’t know where to go if my house is demolished.”

The colony was developed around 1990 by R Kant and Co. It has 1,612 plots. In all, 60 houses have been constructed. Of them, 40 are occupied. The plot size is between 160 sq yards and 1,000 sq yards.

“All 40 families have valid documents for their houses. How can they be asked to vacate their houses as they have been paying property tax all these years?” Gandhi said, adding that “isn’t the house of a former Chief Justice of India in Kant Enclave proves that the colony is legal?”

Satvik Srivastava (29), an engineer-cum-entrepreneur, is another affected person. His father, a retired engineer, had invested in a plot almost 25 years ago in the colony and dreamed of building a house for his children. He could not build it and, now, his son Satvik will wait and watch.

“The cost of the plot has escalated over the years. But after the SC order, my family will be not compensated adequately. We do not know whether or not we will be able to get back the money we invested here,” he said.

Sanjay Basu, a resident of B Block, said the SC judgment was traumatic for him. “Uprooting people who had settled here two to three decades ago is unjust,” he said.

Other pockets under illegal occupation 

Faridabad: Kant Enclave in the Aravalli Hills is not the only construction violative of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA). District Town Planner (DTP) Sanjiv Maan said there could be many other constructions in the Aravalli Hills of Surajkund in violation of the PLPA.

“The details of land in the district identified under the PLPA have been uploaded on the website of the Forest Department, Haryana. The extent of violation can be known after an investigation,” Mann said. 

The department’s website — haryanaforest. gov.in — shows that total land in the district notified under the PLPA is 5,876 acres spread in eight villages, including Anangpur on whose land Kant Enclave has come up. 

Jitender Bhadana of the NGO, Save Aravalli, claimed that educational, residential and commercial buildings had come up in the protected area in the past three to four decades. “In spite of issuing notices, the administration has failed to take action against 120 farmhouses found illegal nine months ago,” he said. 

“The farmhouses have been built on the land of Anangpur village, while six banquet halls and marriage palaces have been built illegally in Surajkund area over the years,” Bhadana added. 

Social activist Varun Sheokand said he had filed a case in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) against the construction of a hotel in the Surajkund area. He hoped the SC order on Kant Enclave might help in checking illegal constructions in the Aravalli belt and save the ecology of the region. — TNS