Tarn Taran, December 29
The district administration is all set to vacate the land on which about 60 shopkeepers and 200 householders (house owners) are settled over the years. The site is along the main GT road, a highly congested commercial location in the heart of the town. The move comes after the Tarn Taran municipal council recently staked its claim to the land on which the shopkeepers and the house owners have existed over the years.
The action to be taken by the administration will cause not only a loss of livelihoods of the shopkeepers, but also deprived house owners of shelter. Those who would be affected by this move have lived here for decades.
An inquiry into the ownership issue had been going on for the last few years and the district administration after getting the report recently said 14 kanals of land had been detected to be the property of the local municipal council.
Rajnish Arora, SDM-cum-Administrator of the municipal council, said here on Thursday that there was no doubt that the said land was the property of the municipal council and the exact demarcation, which is done with Total Station machine (the latest technology to measure land up to inches), was to be received by the administration on Thursday and notices would be served on the encroachers (shopkeepers and house owners).
Rajnish Arora said there could be possibilities that the affected shopkeepers and the house owners had been cheated by someone who by impersonating himself as the owner of the land showed them wrong jamabandi number of some other land and gave them the possession of this land which in the revenue department was not his property. The SDM said the affected people were holding wrong Jamabandi number in their sale deeds.
Meanwhile, former municipal councillor Ranjit Singh Rana, allegedly one of the affected families, said the residents and the shopkeepers had their proper sale deed. They had been depositing property tax and provided electricity connections, etc.
The move to dislocate them has terrorised the shopkeepers and the people who met Tarn Taran MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal, who assured them of an impartial probe into the matter.
