Sunday, 03 SEPTEMBER 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Karan Mahara has said that the houses of people located near the roads in the mountainous districts of the State are being demolished in the name of anti-encroachment drive. The PCC president has written a letter to the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in which he has requested that the order of removing constructions and encroachments from the government land should be taken back. Mahara said that land settlement in Uttarakhand was last done in the year 1962 due to which agriculture and residential land in the mountainous areas is still unmeasured. He said that the homes, cow sheds and temporary shelters of about 80 per cent of the population are on such land. The PCC president added that 80 per cent families belonging to SC and ST categories are cultivating this unmeasured land from generations. He said that on the one hand the government is planning to promulgate ordinance to regularise the encroachments in the slum areas of Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital and Terai areas and on the other hand the demolition of houses on the unmeasured land in mountainous areas is going on which is unjustified. The Congress leader said that after the pandemic of Covid-19 large numbers of people returned from the cities and opened some small businesses near their villages. He said that the anti -encroachment drive has adversely affected their livelihood.
