By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 20 Mar: The team of the Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam (UJVNL) along with the police and the local administration continued its action of demolishing illegal houses built on the banks of the Shakti Canal on the second day, today. The anti-encroachment drive had begun yesterday. Around 700 illegally built houses are being demolished with the help of bulldozers. It may be recalled that the action which was expected to be taken some weeks ago had been stalled under pressure of some political leaders. However, the public pressure and the issue being raised by certain media houses ultimately led the government to move ahead with its demolition drive. This is in addition to the continued action being taken by the Forest Department to demolish illegally built Mazaars also in Pachhwa Doon. So far, 26 mazaars have been demolished. Interestingly, in none of the mazaars demolished so far, any remains of a human body were found. According to some right wing nationalist organisations, construction of illegal mazaars all of a sudden is a pretext for land grabbing in strategic locations inside and on the outskirts of various cities. These organisations, some of which owe allegiance to the RSS, also allege that large scale demographic changes have been noticed in Uttarakhand and in particular in the areas which are bordering UP in the past few years. Some studies undertaken in this respect also confirm this.
Most of the occupants of these illegally built pucca and kachha houses belong to a particular minority community which is the reason why some political parties including the main Opposition Party, the Congress are strongly opposing the anti-encroachment drive. Many of the buildings also include shops and other commercial establishments. According to the authorities, notices were served between 1 and 3 March to the occupants to vacate the houses and other buildings following which some families had themselves vacated, while some had to be forced out. More than 350 buildings have been demolished till this evening. Encroachers have been claiming that they have been in occupation of this land for the past 40 to 50 years although several surveys reveal that most of the encroachments are less than 20 years old.
It was in 2018 when, for the first time, the process of evacuating settlements built on 15 hectares of Jal Vidyut Nigam’s land on both sides of Shakti Canal from Dakpathar to Kulhalhad began. But then the drive had been stalled because some of the encroachers had filed a petition with the High Court. The action was relaunched after the petition was disposed of by the High Court but the bulldozers and the JCBs did not take any action for several days even after reaching the spot. It was then that some “right wing nationalist organisations” and a section of the media again built up pressure on the government and, finally, the action began in right earnest.
It is worth noting that UJVNL is currently engaged in setting up solar energy plants and panels alongside the Shakti Canal even as the encroachments had stretched to a distance of over 15 kilometres.
In a similar but unrelated incident, the government also launched a major crackdown on the illegal mazaars built on forest land. On 13 March, the government had rolled bulldozers over illegal mazaars which were built by encroaching on reserved forest land. The forest officials had remained hesitant to remove the structures for quite some time despite the government orders. Then some media reports including the Organiser and Panchjanya had published stories highlighting the inaction of the forest department, following which Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had strictly directed the forest department to clear forest land of all encroachments. The authorities demolished 26 mazaars that were illegally constructed on the government’s forest land. The authorities conducted a survey and identified around 1400 religious structures built illegally on government land. As per reports, most of the illegal mazaars do not even contain any human remains.
