Locals protest inclusion of village under development body in Bir

Residents of Gunehar village near the Bir area of Kangra district on Friday held a meeting to stage a protest against the inclusion of their area under the jurisdiction of Special Area Development Authority (SADA).

Anjana Devi, a member of Gunehar Panchayat, said the decision had been taken without the residents’ opinion. The inclusion of their village under SADA would increase bureaucratic hassles for the locals, she said. They had met local Congress MLA and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Kishori Lal regarding the issue, but no change had taken place, she said.

Jaise Ram, a village resident, said their village was nearly 7 km from the paragliding site in Bir. Their village never got any benefit from the sport in the area, he said. The state government or SADA had not provided any facilities to the villagers, yet their village was included under the development body, he said. This would make their living difficult and they would have to run in government offices to even to make slight modifications in their houses, he said.

The residents of Gunehar have been protesting for the past two months and they have also threatened that they would disrupt the Paragliding World Cup that is scheduled to take place in Bir Billing in November in case the government did not exclude their area from the limits of SADA.

SADA is a body formed under the Baijnath SDM to regulate the constructions and other development in Bir Billing, which was among the top ten paragliding sites of the world.

Thousands of tourists and paragliding pilots from across the world visit Bir Billing every year to enjoy the adventure sport. The body was formed after many high-rise buildings were coming up in Bir area, posing threat to life of paragliding pilots.