Apprise dam oustees of Jaipur meeting outcome, Himachal Pradesh CM urged

Our Correspondent

NURPUR, JULY 24

Himachal Pradesh Pong Dam Oustees’ Samiti has appealed to Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to make public the decision taken in the 30th meeting of the North Zonal Council meeting convened at Jaipur in Rajasthan under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on July 9 for solving rehabilitation issue of thousands of oustees in Rajasthan.

Hukum Guleri, general secretary of the samiti, in a statement here today said that the meeting had been attended by the Chief Minister who claimed to have raised the issue of misery of the Pong Dam oustees after their displacement over five decades ago following the construction of Pong Dam reservoir in lower hills of Kangra district.

“After land acquisition of the oustees in Kangra district for the construction of Pong Dam Reservoir, a meeting of the then chief ministers of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan was convened and presided over by the then union energy minister KL Rao in which around 2.25 lakh acres land in Sriganganar district in Rajasthan had been earmarked for its allotment to the displaced oustees. But over 50 per cent of this reserved land is in possession of the local people and land grab mafia,” he alleged.

Guleri said that thousands of oustees, who had been running from pillar to post for their rehabilitation in Sriganganagar district in Rajasthan, must know the decisions taken in the council meeting if Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur had seriously raised their plight in it.

He lamented that out of 16,352 oustees eligible for allotment in 1972-73, as many as 8,713 (50 per cent) who were shown to have got land, were not allotted land in the reserved pool of 2.25 lakh acres in phase-I in Sriganganagar.

“Out of the 8,713 oustees, 50 per cent have been allotted land in the unreserved area of Phase-II in Jaisalmer district and this process is still going on. The unreserved area with harsh living conditions is on the Indo- Pak border that lacks all basic amenities like potable and irrigation water, hospital and road connectivity,” he rued.

Guleri said oustees had filed a petition in the apex court in 1992 which in 1997 had ordered to allot reserved land to the oustees but even then the land had not been given to the left-out oustees.

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