Shifting of Hisar bus stand on hold after ex-minister’s backing

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, July 29

The shifting of the bus stand in Hisar has turned into a situation involving two prominent political figures of the town — Health Minister Kamal Gupta and businesswoman and former minister Savitri Jindal.

Though Gupta, who is the BJP MLA and had defeated Savitri Jindal in 2014 when she contested on Congress ticket, has been pushing for shifting of the existing bus stand to the outskirts to decongest the town, the proposal has been shelved after the intervention of former minister Savitri Jindal, who has recently joined the BJP. Her son Naveen Jindal is the BJP MP from Kurukshetra.

To shift or not to shift

• Health Minister Kamal Gupta took up the proposal to shift the bus stand outside Hisar town.
• A traders organisation opposed the shifting obviously in view of their business interests. They met former minister Savitri Jindal last week who assured them over their demand.
• With Jindal’s weight behind them, traders met minister Gupta who accepted their demand to shelve the project.
• Another group of residents on Monday met Gupta demanding shifting of the bus stand. The minister assured them of looking into their demand.

Though Gupta too backed out on the proposal after Jindal put her weight behind those residents who were opposing the shifting, another group of residents staged dharna and resumed the demand for shifting and called on the Health Minister at his residence.

A delegation of the pro-shifting seekers today urged the Health Minister to expedite the work on the project stating that the shifting of new bus stand would decongest the town. “The existing bus stand is the main reason for traffic jam in the town. The entire stretch from the civil hospital to Red Square market remained jammed during peak hours due to the bus stand,” said Sunil Sharma, a resident of Mill Gate locality who was part of the delegation.

Sharma said that though the district administration had submitted the proposal for the new bus stand on Airport Road on about 30 acres, the proposal has been dropped at the behest of some influential persons.

The minister intimated the delegation that the proposal had been dropped recently, but he assured that he would take it up for reconsideration.

Tinu Jain, a former municipal corporation member who had led the group that was opposed to the shifting of the bus stand, had been successful in getting the project shelved recently. Jain had led a delegation of some traders and market associations to meet former minister Jindal who agreed with their demand.

Later on, they met Health Minister Gupta, who despite arguing that it was necessary to shift the bus stand, accepted their demand for dropping the project. Notably, Gupta had rejected the demand of the traders’ body when they took up the issue with him four months ago.

Jain said that they had urged the minister to remove the rehris near the bus stand which would help in decongesting that stretch in the town.

Gupta’s aide Suresh Dhoopwala said that the minister has not made any commitment to the delegation that met him today, but has assured to look into their demand.