Residents complain of unclaimed vehicles on MC land

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 21

The administration recently adopted a cleanliness campaign “Swachta Hi Sewa” to make the city clean, green and pollution free, initiated by the Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation and the Mayor.

However the vacant Municipal Corporation land that can be used to develop parks and green belts is being used to dump “scrap of vehicles ” by the Police Department.

Stolen and unclaimed vehicles like trucks, cars, scooters, bikes, auto-rickshaws and buses have been lying on vacant or unoccupied plots of the civic body at different places, mostly near the police stations.

Citing the reason that its district court’s property, the Municipal Corporation (MC) seems to be least concerned about the embezzled condition of its land.

“Though exact figure is not available but 5 to10 acres of land has been occupied by the tonnes of scrap at different areas of the city,” said Mayor Jagdish Raja. The Mayor said, “The pendency of such unclaimed vehicles lie in the court, so they couldn’t intervene into replacing these scraps. Only Judicial Magistrate can initiate any action to dump or reuse such vehicles.”

Police officials at Maqsudan police station said, due to the lack of extra space on the station premises, they had to dump these vehicles into the nearby empty plots. “The unclaimed vehicles are lying here and unless the court issues any order, either to dump them or sell them in auction, they couldn’t do anything,” they added.

Many vehicles have even rotten up and have become the breeding ground for musquitoes and insects. Similarly such scrap is lying unattended near other police divisions.

Krishan Singh, a resident said, “ We have been looking at this scrap for the past several years. These vehicles that have been taken up by the cops are either stolen or for which no claimant has turned up to establish his right. These vehicles must not be kept on public land. Residents are facing problem due to pollution and these vacant lands can be converted into public parks or green belts.”

Besides, scraps of unused vehicles are lying along the roads, bus stand, industrial area and public parks. Factory owners said the vehicles gather dust and hinders walking spaces.

“Wild grass has grown all over the place. If the scrap is of no use to anyone, it should be sold to generate revenue,” said a shopkeeper whose shops lies near these lands.