Sekhowal panchayat passes resolution to get back land

Residents of Sekhowal village, near Mattewara, are up in arms against the state government and the GLADA authorities for “forcefully” acquiring the panchayat land in 2020. The gram panchayat of the village gathered recently and passed a resolution, demanding that the land be returned to the villagers as it was made clear to the state government and GLADA that the panchayat will not allow to acquire its land for any “industrial-hub” in the area, as was proposed and after much opposition, the same was withdrawn in the past.

At the same time, the residents said GLADA was still putting its hoardings in the village and the villagers have demanded to remove the same and provide around 415 acres of land to the panchayat, to which it belongs.

Kashmir Singh, the panch, presented a resolution that was accepted by all gram sabha members. He briefed that on July 21, 2020, the sabha unanimously banned the sale of the village panchayat land and the construction of any project on it under the name of any industrial project.

However on September 21, 2020, going against the resolution of the sabha, the registration of the panchayat land was illegally done by the GLADA authorities. The consent for the land was allegedly forcibly taken by the authorities from villagers for the Mattewara industrial park in the evening, after office hours. Against which in July 2022, hundreds of residents gathered at Sekhowal village and held a protest. Afterwards, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann had ordered the return of the acquired land to the panchayat on July 11, 2022, while rejecting the industrial project.

“The gram sabha demanded that all constitutional institutions should take responsibility and accountability for protecting the rights of the sabha as enshrined in the Constitution and order that the process of land return should be initiated after the cancellation of the industrial project. The land should be registered under the ownership of the Sekhowal panchayat as soon as possible,” the panchayat members said.

One of the villagers said most of the families in the village were Dalits, who were not educated and government had forcefully taken over the land from them. There are about 500 residents belonging to the Dalit families in Sekhowal.