The Residents Welfare Association, Gandhi Nagar (Jammu) has appealed Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to urgently intervene and direct the Administrative Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department and Managing Director (MD), J&K Housing Board to recall the erroneous and draconian order of demolition of structures in front 10 feet of the plot of about 400 householders of Gandhi Nagar Housing Colony Jammu.
J&K Housing Board through a public notice on October 8, 2021 had threatened to demolish the boundary walls and other structures constructed on the front 10 feet of their plots situated on five major roads involving about 400 houses in Gandhi Nagar Housing Colony if the same is not vacated by 7th November, 2021 by the house owners in whose possession it is for the last 60 years.
In an appeal to the LG, the secretary general of the Association, Chander Uday Sharma, said that the notice of the Housing Board is arbitrary and ill-conceived to harass the peace loving nationalist house owners. This notice has let loose a reign of uncertainty of possible huge demolition in Gandhi Nagar, he added.
The Association said that the MD has mischievously made a case for all out demolition on willfully wrong and flawed ground of encroachment of five roads whereas the fact remained that no road was ever encroached by any of the residents. “The width of four of the five roads identified for demolition was 40 feet in 1960 which is corroborated from the building plans approved then and even today it has the same width on ground. The building plans of houses approved in sixties clearly indicate this width. This is reflected even in the Gandhi Nagar Colony’s layout plan revised in 2007 as well,” it said and questioned the encroachment claim of the MD Housing Board.
The Association members urged the LG to get this basic fact verified on the ground. They said that the drains and electric poles on these roads were created by the Government agencies that are abutting the road as well as the boundary wall. The location of these drains and these electric poles has remained same for the last 60 years when the colony came into being, they added.
“The Gandhi Nagar Housing Colony is the first well planned colony established in late fifties by the then Prime Minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohd but the tragedy is that the Housing Board failed to create more housing colonies in the fast expanding winter capital as per its statutory mandate except Channi Himmat, and now it is trying to cover up its abject failure to meet the housing needs of the people by raising this unnecessary issue to harass its residents and divert the attention of general public from its failures,” the Association said.
“During the past 60 years, thousands of building plans for construction of houses on these allotted plots in Gandhi Nagar colony were approved by the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) showing the same 40 feet width of the road in the front. Moreover, the same Housing Board had been issuing NOC for the approval of building plans. It is beyond our comprehension as to why the Housing Board is targeting Gandhi Nagar now,” they added.
Expressing full faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and LG Manoj Sinha, the Association sought their immediate intervention to restrain the Housing Board and JMC from taking any coercive action against the peaceful possession of the houses of residents of Gandhi Nagar.