Cultivable land damaged by road construction firm, allege villagers

Dinesh Kanwar

Hamirpur, April 25

The company engaged in construction of the NH-3 passing through villages in the district has allegedly damaged property and encroached upon the private land. The stretch is part of the Hamirpur-Mandi NH and land was acquired by the company to widen the road.

Affected villagers alleged that the company had started dumping earth material in their cultivable land and now they have complained of damages and encroachment on their land. The project is being executed by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). It is learnt that a toll barrier was proposed near Thana Drogan village.

Work as per design, no alteration made

The NH is being constructed as per the design. No alteration has been made or land has been cut beyond the pillars fixed by the Revenue Dept. Allegations levelled by the villagers are baseless.

Mukesh Kumar Gupta, project head, ministry of road transport and highways

Ravinder Thakur, pradhan of Bari Mandir gram panchayat, said the construction company was violating norms and even cutting land beyond pillars of the acquired land. He further said officers of the construction company and those of MoRTH had chosen to ignore their repeated requests.

Gulshan Kumar, pradhan of Kot gram panchayat, alleged that the NH authorities had changed the alignment of the road at many places and that had led to a conflict between MoRTH and villagers.

Sanjay Kumar, SDM, Bhoranj, said that he had received complaints regarding the NH construction work. He said that he had apprised project head of MoRTH and suggested him to address the grievances of people.