Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 23: Residents Welfare Association, Gandhinagar has sought intervention of Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to restrain the Housing Board and Jammu Municipal Corporation from taking “coercive and thoughtless” action against the peaceful possession by the residents of Gandhinagar.
In an open letter to the Lt Governor, the Association President Lal Man Khajuria and general secretary Er Chandra Uday Sharma have highlighted the grievance of the residents of Gandhinagar, who are legal holders of the plots, allotted in late fifties and are un-necessarily being harassed by the JMC and Housing Board.
“The colony was initially planned in such a way that the front road was kept 50 feet wide, which was later reduced to 40 feet allowing the concerned plot holders to use the available 10 feet strip as green patch,” reads the letter, adding that order in this regard was also available with descendents of some allottees, which shows formal transfer of the additional strip against payment to the Government.
“Even as many of the present occupants are third generation of the original allottees and not much record is available with them, same alignment of the entire row of houses and boundary walls abutting the drain, street light poles and the road in the colony is a proof that additional land was handed over by the Government and was not encroached upon by the plot holders,” the Association further explains.
Reiterating that these extra strips were allowed to the residents as an incentive to establish the colony at that time when people were not willing to come far from the old city centre, the Association rued that after 60 years of permissible possession, the Housing Board was now coercing the residents to dismantle their boundary walls in the front and reconstruct it leaving 10-feet stretch.
“Forcing the residents to vacate 10-feet front strip after 60 year will lead to demolition of more than 50 percent of Gandhinagar to fulfill fantasy of some callous officers, who have no justification to punish the residents,” said the Association and suggested that instead of adopting such coercive action, the Government can have thought of charging for the additional strip from those who are unable to produce proper documents for the possession.
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