Rajasthan govt allots land to 213 more Pong oustees
The move comes following a highlevel meeting between Rajasthan and Himachal top officials in Jaipur
SHIMLA: In the latest development, the Rajasthan government has approved the allotment of land for the rehabilitation of 213 remaining oustees of Pong dam in Himachal Pradesh, the main source of water in Indira Gandhi Canal.
“The land will be transferred to the remaining oustees within next three months,” Himachal Pradesh joint secretary revenue PK Taak told Hindustan Times on Sunday. Rajasthan colonisation commissioner LN Meena and Himachal’s relief and rehabilitation deputy commissioner Shakti Singh inked the agreement in a high-level meeting held in Jaipur.
The move might end the longdrawn struggle of the oustees who have been running from pillar to post for the past almost five decades for their rehabilitation.
The decision came after the repeated persuasion by the Himachal Pradesh government. In the past 20 years, the successive governments of Rajasthan and Himachal have had held almost 20 rounds of meetings without reaching any amicable solution for the oustees’ settlement.
The oustees — hailing from Kangra district — have been ruing the delay in allotment of cultivable land to them in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar and Anupgarh.
Another issue being faced by the already rehabilitated outsees in Rajasthan’s Longewala and Hansuwala was of the nature of land alloted to them. The 3,500 murabas (one muraba is 25 acres) of area earmarked by the Rajasthan government for the displaced was mostly arid and lacked proper irrigation facilities.
However, Rajasthan government in 2016 had offered land to 400 oustees at Mohangarh, Ramgarh and Nachna areas of Bikaner district but 700 of them are yet to get their share of cultivable land in Rajasthan.
Moreover, the land allocated to 1,188 families in Ganganagar had been allegedly grabbed by the land mafia.
WHAT LED TO PONG PANGS
The construction of water reservoir in a village near Pong began in 1961.
The Pong dam project was conceived as part of larger project, then known as the Rajasthan Canal Project, but was later rechristened as Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyoyajna.
The process of the land acquisition also began in early 1960’s. Around 75,268 acres of land was submerged in the Pong dam reservoir affecting 339 villages and displacing 20,722 families. Out of these, 16,352 families were found eligible to avail land in Rajasthan.
The land will be transferred to the remaining oustees within next three months.
PK TAAK, HP joint secretary revenue