100-foot road 'disappears', Ludhiana Improvement Trust, MC play blame game

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, December 3

It’s a classic case of everybody’s responsibility is nobody’s responsibility as one 100-foot road in Vikas Nagar — a colony developed by the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) and later handed over to the Municipal Corporation for maintenance — has simply disappeared. For over a year now, the LIT and the Municipal Corporation authorities have been corresponding with each other without any positive outcome until now.

It is indeed intriguing that the 100-foot road had been encroached upon in one of the busy localities on the Pakhowal road. The MC and the LIT continue to pass the buck and none of these institutions are prepared to confirm or deny existence of the road, which still existed in the layout plans of the colony prepared by the Trust and also handed over to the Town Planning Department of the MC.

In a complaint to the Punjab Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary, Local Government, Punjab, a city-based social activist, Nalin Kaushik, an advocate, has alleged that LIT and MC officials had shut their eyes to the issue of ‘missing road’, which had been allegedly occupied by unlawful means for construction of residential houses, commercial buildings and even religious institutions.

As per information obtained by Kaushik under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, LIT officials had maintained that the status of the road or for that matter any encroachment on public road would be known to the MC as the scheme had been transferred to the civic body for maintenance and building control was also with the MC authorities.

In his complaint, Kaushik said on the issue of ‘missing road’ and encroachment thereon, the complaint and enquiry branch of the MC had intimated him that information about the road had been sought from the LIT and a letter by the MC building branch (377/ATP-D dated August 19, 2020) had been written to the LIT executive officer.

“Later, the LIT officials also intimated me (vide letter LIT/6334 dated November 20, 2020) that the information and layout of the scheme sought by the MC had been provided to the messenger by the Drawing Department,” said the complainant.

“Little or no efforts were made to gain the possession of the land (under encroachment) since the 100-foot road had to be constructed to connect Vikas Nagar with Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar while passing through Pakhowal road along Sidhwan Canal and the Ferozepur railway line,” the complainant contended.

Now that MC officials had been given the layout plan of the scheme and have also been told about encroachment on the said road for almost a year, no worthwhile action seemed to have been taken in this regard, he said, demanding that encroachment on the road should be removed and strict disciplinary action be taken against negligent officials.

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