COURTS

Zirakpur resident in a fix following HC orders
Will the government move the apex court ?
From Bipin Bhardwaj

ZIRAKPUR, June 14 —The proverbial sword of Damocles in the form of the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) hangs over the heads of the residents of the former Zirakpur Nagar Panchayat following the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashing the notification of the Punjab Government for declaring the area a Nagar Panchayat.

All civic developmental works within Zirakpur and its surrounding areas have been suspended and the Nagar Panchayat office locked following the directions of the court. The government has attached the panchayat employees to SAS Nagar civic body.

The functioning of the civic body has come to a standstill and all octroi posts on different roads diverging from here, which were the main sources of income for the Nagar Panchayat, have been locked. Besides this, there is no official work at the Nagar Panchayat’s office and it presents a deserted look.

Applicants seeking the no-objection certificates (NOCs) and other necessary documents from the panchayat authority have been returning disappointed as they are not being entertained by the employees of the civic body. The development projects, which were to be taken up under various town planning schemes, and the master plan for the proposed new township have remained on papers only.

A major project on the water supply lines and sewerage system, which was to be laid by spending Rs 11.50 crore in various colonies and villages, has remained a dream for the needy residents, who have to travel miles to get water from nearby areas.

Residents of seven villages—Zirakpur, Bartana, Lohgarh, Bishanpura, Bishangarh, Dhakauli and Himmatgarh, which were merged to create the Nagar Panchayat—had started feeling secure regarding their property due to PUDA’s anti-encroachment drives. But now their hopes have been dashed to the ground following the court orders.

Residents are worried as they have invested their hard-earned money on the construction of houses. Assurances by political leaders, including Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Finance and Planning Minister Kanwaljit Singh, about the beautification of the township have not been fulfilled.

Most affected are the farmers, property dealers and those residents who have invested either in property or in constructing beautiful houses in the colonies and the villages as they have not been issued NOCs by the former Nagar Panchayat authorities even after over one year.

The rates of property in the area declined soon after the issuance of the court orders. The investors, who have deposited the earnest money for their plots, are in a fix as they don't know whether the government will issue the notification again about the formation of the Nagar Panchayat or not. Some investors, who had made up their mind to invest in property in Zirakpur area, dropped the idea when they came to know about the orders of the high court.

But the important point is where the money, collected by the former Nagar Panchayat authorities will go? What will be the future of the streetlights installed at a cost of Rs 72 lakh and who will pay the electricity bills for these ? At which site the beautiful park will come up which was planned on the triangular piece of land adjacent to the Zirakpur-Panchkula road having fountains, sea-saws and beds of flowers.

Mr Surjit Singh, former Administrator of the Zirakpur Nagar Panchayat, ascertained that all this had been done only on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. ‘‘Now it is up to the government whether to reissue the notifications about the creation of the Nagar Panchayat after fulfilling all technical and legal formalities or not.The government is thinking to move the Supreme court on the issue’’, he remarked.