LIT misleading rights panel: Residents

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, October 13

Charging the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) authorities with attempts to mislead the Punjab State Human Rights Commission (PSHRC) on insanitary conditions prevailing in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, the residents have pleaded that their earlier complaint – closed on the basis of action taken report (ATR) sent by the Deputy Commissioner along with a report submitted by the LIT – be reopened as no worthwhile action had been taken till now for regular sweeping of roads/streets and disposal of garbage.

Irked over abject insanitary conditions in the colony, the affected residents had moved the PSHRC saying they were forced to live in misery due to apathy of LIT officials with no arrangements for sanitation and disposal of garbage in place.

The PSHRC had closed the complaint (no. 10022/10/2018) on September 19, 2019, with the observations – “Since the Improvement Trust, Ludhiana, is alive to the situation and taking prompt action, no further or other direction is required to be issued. The report submitted by the Deputy Commissioner aforementioned is hereby accepted.”

The panel, had, however, put a rider to the orders that the complainant shall be at liberty to move again if his grievance still subsists.

“Not only garbage is being dumped or rather scattered across the colony exposing the residents to grave health hazard but is being burnt thereby further compounding the problem of environmental pollution which has already assumed alarming proportions in the city,” said the complainants while making an earnest plea to the PSHRC to reopen their complaint and take stern action against the LIT officials for giving an ‘inhuman’ treatment to the residents of the colony.