Demolition orders for 173 encroachments on NH-21

Parts of several mega townships,SDM office,judicial courts and tehsil complexes,ESI Hospital ,number of shops and residences within the limits of Kharar Municipal Council (MC) were identified as encroachments during the demarcation undertaken by the Revenue department and Public Works department’s Central Works Division (CWD).

On the directions of the PWD CWD Executive Engineer Karnail Singh,Kharar MC Executive Officer (EO) Vijay Kumar Gupta issued orders on Friday to demolish the encroachments.

The encroachers were given a week’s time to remove their structures on their own,failing which the MC enforcement staff,with the help of the PWD CWD,Revenue department and local administration,would forcibly pull down the structures and recover the cost of demolition from encroachers.

The development assumes significance as these encroachments are coming in the way of the four-laning project,which was earlier grounded due to electricity poles,trees and other public utilities standing on the area earmarked for four-laning.

Recently,most electricity poles,overhead electricity wires,trees and other public utilities causing obstruction were removed,following which the work was resumed but only to hit roadblock once again due to these illegal structures.

The area under encroachment is owned by the Forest department and PWD CWD has already paid Rs 95 lakh,as demanded by the Forest department in September 2007,to acquire its seven metres land on both sides of the existing NH-21.

Expressing his inability to remove the encroachments,Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) K Kanan had passed the buck to the Kharar MC,while citing a directive from the Punjab Chief Secretary entrusting the removal of encroachments within the municipal limits to civic bodies concerned. Accordingly,the Kharar MC EO was entrusted with the job to remove the structures.

The 4.14-km stretch of one of the busiest national highways connecting Chandigarh with major parts of Punjab,Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir via Mohali and Kharar was being decongested at a cost of Rs 12.49 crore but the work was getting delayed due to indifference of the Forest department and PSEB authorities in shifting their respective utilities.

It was after the PWD officials and the private contractor,who was assigned the work,threatened the departments concerned to seek damages and costs for delaying the project that the officials concerned initiated the work. Recently,275 permanent structures dotting the NH-21 and NH-95 outside the municipal limits were issued demolition orders.