Odd-even pillars to demarcate Haryana border with UP

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, June 15

With the state government easing lockdown restrictions, the construction of pillars which will demarcate the Haryana-Uttar Pradesh border along the Yamuna has started.

Once constructed, the pillars will resolve the decades-old dispute among farmers of the two states concerning land ownership and possession. The pillars will be numbered odd and even — odd number signifying land belonging to Haryana and even number will denote land belonging to Uttar Pradesh.

The height of each pillar will be 21.5 m — 15 m will be underground and 6 m above.

The site for the pillars was earmarked by the Survey of India last year. In all, 44 pillars are to be erected in Badi Kalan village in the district on a trial base. The Public Works Department, Haryana, will erect 20 pillars, while its counterpart in Uttar Pradesh will erect the remaining pillars.

The estimated cost of erecting pillars in Haryana would be Rs 126.11 crore.

The project was to start on April 23, but for the Covid-induced lockdown, it was delayed. The work started last month; its deadline is August 22.

Two pillars have been erected, while the foundation of 10 pillars has been laid.

Karnal SDM Ayush Sinha, who is monitoring the project, said: “The decision to erect pillars was taken by the two state governments after a meeting held in January last year. This will end the decades-old dispute among farmers of Haryana and UP.”

Since 1950s, several violent clashes have taken place among farmers of the two states over thousands of acres of land. Every time the Yamuna changes its course when it is flooded, there is confusion about land ownership. Crops sown by farmers of one state are harvested by farmers of the other state, leading to clashes.

In the 1970s, the Dixit committee was set up to resolve the problem. It had demarcated the land in 1975, taking the flow of the Yamuna at that time as the border between the two states, but it did not put a permanent end to the problem.

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