Road work incomplete, Sangrur family left in lurch

Blurb: Admn promises action

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, January 7

When retired Army officers and hundreds of area residents will attend the ‘bhog’ of Air Vice-Marshal Gurdial Singh Punia (retd) on January 8 at his ancestral Gurdaspura village, they will also see the alleged discrimination the family of Punia has been facing from the Panchayat Department. The department has laid interlocking tiles only in half of the street and left the remaining muddy portion in front of the house of Punia last year.

“My father Gurdial Singh Punia retired as an Air Vice-Marshal while my grandfather Subdedar Dhanna Singh had retired from the Army. Our three generations have served the nation for almost a century, but we are facing discrimination from the Panchayat Department without any reason,” said Col Inderpal Singh Punia (retd).

He alleged that officers were saying that they would construct the remaining portion after getting more funds, but no one knows when it would happen.

“There are big claims by the Punjab Government that Sangrur is getting developmental grants, but where are these grants going? I filed an RTI application last year, but have not any response from the officials. I request CM Capt Amarinder Singh, who is also an ex-serviceman, to look into the matter,” he said.

Gurdaspura village Panchayat Secretary Nirbhai Singh said the matter was in his knowledge. “Under MGNREGA norms, we could not construct a street wider than 10 feet. We are trying to get more funds to complete the pending work of placing interlocking tiles. We have sought more grants for the village,” he said.

Though Singh claimed they could not lay interlocking tiles of more than 10-ft width, sources confirmed to The Tribune that had the officers wished, they could have got a grant sanctioned for the interlocking of tiles in the remaining street under another scheme.

“I can say anything only after visiting the site. I will visit it soon and we will attach a grant from another developmental scheme,” said Lenin Garg, Block Development and Panchayat Officer, Sangrur.