Selja seeks plots for displaced families

Sirsa, July 6

Sirsa MP Kumari Selja has written to Union Minister of Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, demanding permanent housing for hundreds of families displaced from Thehad in Sirsa. She said that the Archaeological Department had claimed 85 acres of land in Thehad and filed a case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking that it be vacated.

The High Court ordered the government to first arrange permanent housing for the displaced families. However, the state government did not comply to the order. Promising residential plots to them, the authorities evicted 753 families from 31.2 acres land in 2018 and relocated them to Housing Board flats in Sirsa, which lacked basic amenities, as a makeshift arrangement.

Despite repeated demands for plots, their pleas were ignored. The Archaeological Department has now demanded that the remaining land too be vacated, which would affect over 5,000 families. Selja said it was the state government’s responsibility to provide permanent houses for the displaced and suggested arranging residential plots in nearby village panchayats or allocating the Housing Board flats to them.