Field staff to be held accountable if new encroachments crop up in Chandigarh
Chandigarh adviser Dharam Pal says he has put everybody on alert that no encroachment must come up anywhere in the city
Taking a cue from the dictum “prevention is better than cure”, the UT administration has decided to crack the whip on field staff of different departments if any new encroachments show up in their areas.
Under scanner will be enforcement wings of different agencies, including the UT Estate Office and engineering department.
UT adviser Dharam Pal said, “I have put everybody on alert. No encroachment must be allowed to come up anywhere in the city.”
The directions come days after the administration demolished 2,500 illegal shanties at Colony Number 4 on Sunday and recovered 65 acres of government land.
It has also given eviction notices to residents of Janta Colony in Sector 25 to vacate the land within 21 days and to those in Sanjay Colony in Industrial Area, Phase 1, to leave within seven days. Apart from these, some slum clusters also exist in Manimajra. The administration aims to clear the city of all left out slum clusters within a month.
Poor monitoring of encroachments and lack of timely intervention by field staff has led to unchecked mushrooming of a number of slums in different parts of the city over the years.
It has taken the administration nearly two decades to vacate most of the encroached land and construction of around 40,000 houses to rehabilitate the displaced slum-dwellers.
But the problem still persists, as new encroachments keep surfacing in small clusters across the city.
Stopping any new encroachments is primarily the responsibility of the enforcement wings of the municipal corporation and the Estate Office.
Stating that there is adequate field staff to rein in such encroachments, Pal said, “What we have to do is to deploy them properly and make them accountable. If their (field staff) department’s land is encroached upon, then it is their responsibility to stop it. Accountability has to be fixed.”
Police to keep a watch too
The administration will also rope in the police to check any new encroachments in the city. “I have talked to the director general of police (DGP) in this regard. Local police officials will assist in stopping new encroachments. The station house officer (SHO) will be made accountable in this regard,” said Pal.
Notably, earlier too, police officials were tasked with stopping any new encroachments in their areas. Beat officers were employed for the purpose, but the practice discontinued after some time.