STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Residents of Channi Himmat Housing Colony are up in arms against the alleged nexus between officials of JK Housing Board and a land mafia.
Large number of residents of Channi Himmat Housing colony including residents of Ward No 50 and 51 Thursday staged a protest against the alleged allotment of commercial sites and conversion of ‘Thanger Nullah’ in to commercial site by the J&K Housing Board in grave violation of Jammu Master Plan.
The protest march led by prominent citizens of Channi Himmat Housing Colony started under the leadership of Raj Kumar, a social worker of the area, and culminated near Cremation Ground.
Senior residents including large number of women staged Dharna against the alleged move by the corrupt officials of the J&K Housing Board to extend undue advantage to their near and dear ones through back door allotment of commercial sites alongside Thanger Nullah.
Channi -Himmat Resident Welfare Association members said that the issue of illegal allotment of commercial sites is gross violation of the Master Plan and claimed it was a threat to the environment.
The residents alleged that encroaching and developing commercial sites along the river beds, water bodies and altering their course has proved disastrous in the State of Jammu and Kashmir hence J&K Housing Board should refrain from all such commercial activity on the green strip to save ecology of the colony.
Raj Kumar said that the local residents in the area have been regularly meeting senior officials of the J&K Housing Board to take up the issue of misuse of green strip of land but instead of listening to their pleas they went ahead and allegedly allotted commercial sites in clear violation of the rules.
Alleging large scale scam in allotment of commercial sites, Raj Kumar said the same was done during the rule of Congress-National Conference Government and demanded a thorough probe in the matter from the newly formed Mufti led BJP-PDP alliance.
Senior resident of the Channi Himmat Housing colony PL Kohli said in the past we fought against encroachment of Green belt and won the case in the larger interest of the public.
He said this time also the residents of the housing colony are geared up to fight the long battle against the nexus of corrupt officials of J&K Housing board.
Kohli said that if Nullahs will be converted into the commercial buildings, there could be floods like the recent ones in Kashmir as no space will be left for the flood water.
He demanded from Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh to personally look into the matter and deliver justice.
Referring to the high level meeting between the MLA Gandhi Nagar, Kavinder Gupta and Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh, some of the members said both the leaders have been apprised of the unplanned activities of the Housing board and appealed to the state govt to take cognizance of the peoples anger and direct the concerned authorities to stop the commercial activities on the bank of Thanger Nallah.
The residents of the Housing colony also appealed to the State Govt to direct the J&K Housing board authorities to develop the green belt on either side of the Nullah to beautify the residential area.
The residents also appealed to the state govt to expedite work on the development of adequate parking space near cremation ground to avoid inconvenience to local people.
