Housing for all: No cheer for slum dwellers in Jalandhar

JALANDHAR After the project for constructing flats for the slum dwellers of Indira Colony was dropped by the Jalandhar municipal corporation (MC) during the house meeting in December last year, the MC has made no plans for developing another area under the scheme.

Besides Indira Colony, Chuggitti, Ekta Nagar, Kot Ram Das and Avtar Nagar are the slum areas in the city.

Manjinder Singh Chatta, councillor of ward 15 said that though he had approached mayor Sunil Jyoti for selecting one of the slums in his area, there has been no response. Chuggitti and Ekta Nagar area falls in ward 15.

After protest by residents of Indira Colony led by former north MLA KD Bhandari, the MC has dropped the plan of sending the detailed project report (DPR) for the proposed work to Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA).

In the survey carried out by the civic body in the area in September last year, it identified 444 beneficiaries that would be given flats under the scheme at Indira Colony. Kulvinder Singh, superintendent engineer, roads and building (B&R) department said that though the area residents would have gotten flats, but they prefer living without that. “Most of the residents have encroached government land. They don’t have any registry with them,” Kulvinder Singh.

Indira Colony slum largely comprises migrants from Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan and has a vote bank of around 3,000 people.

Nirmal Jeet Kaur, project in-charge of National Urban Livelihood Mission said the MC has not sent the final list of beneficiaries to PUDA as the authorities are yet to decide another site for the project. While work under vertical one category of the mission is delayed, PUDA has long back sent the list of the beneficiary of the cemented house under the scheme.

Last month, the MCJ received a final list of 1,498 beneficiaries. When contacted, Bawa Henry, the sitting MLA, said that he was not aware of the issue and will soon contact the MC official on the matter.