Land owners get eviction notice as wait for relief gets longer
HOSHIARPUR: Even as government agencies are probing the alleged multi-crore land acquisition scam and compensation is yet to be paid to all stakeholders whose land was acquired for the fourlaning of Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur Chintpurni national highway, the agencies concerned have started serving eviction notices to the owners.
Several such notices have been pasted outside the residential and commercial structures by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) asking the owners to remove the same on their own by October 29 or these would be bulldozed at government cost to be recovered later from the owners. The owners have been informed to receive the award from Hoshiarpur sub-divisional magistrate but the former are wary. “The government must pay the compensation first and then go ahead with the demolition,” said an occupant whose structure comes in the road alignment.
Properties of several big business establishments like Reliance Industries, Usha Martin and JCT Mills also come in the area marked for the four-laning project. It is, however, the small businessmen and house owners who are jolted the most by the sudden eviction move.
The four-lane project is to start from Jalandhar’s Choohranwali village and go up to Nari in Hoshiarpur district. The centrallyfunded project would be completed by a private firm under EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) mode.
The contractor would maintain the road for five years and collect a toll by raising a toll barrier.
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had acquired about 100 acres of land for the highway widening but the acquisition process landed in controversy after revelations of misappropriation of compensation by some government officials and certain politicians.
Right to Information (RTI) activist Rajiv Vashisht had exposed the nexus and came out with startling revelation that influential persons bought the land at throwaway prices and sold it to the NHAI at inflated rates. On Vashisht’s complaint, a vigilance enquiry was initiated by the previous SAD-BJP government which is still underway. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India also marked the probe to the internal audit office of the NHAI. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating the alleged fraud on its own.
Recently, it raided the premises of then Hoshiarpur sub-divisional magistrate in Patiala who had awarded inflated compensation to the select beneficiaries. As per the ED findings, ₹58 crore loss was caused to the state exchequer.
The economic offences wing of the VB, Ludhiana, had registered an FIR under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating), 467, 468 and 471 (forgery), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, against 13 persons, including government officials, in February last year.