Gurugram Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that the Kherki Daula toll plaza will be shifted within one year, after the Punjab and Haryana high court, in October, released 50 of 1,128 acres in Panchgaon that are under litigation.
After meeting Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for road, transport and highways, in Delhi on Thursday, Khattar tweeted, “Kherki Daula toll in Gurugram will be shifted within a period of one year. Land has been made available for the same.”
Removal of the Kherki Daula toll is a longstanding demand of residents of Gurugram’s newer sectors and commuters who get stuck in traffic jams at the toll plaza for more than an hour every day, since this toll came up in 2014. In 2017, Gadkari had announced that the Kherki Daula toll would be shifted from its current location.
Following the high court’s order on October 30, the HSIIDC started taking the land from the farmers and initiated the procedure of handing it over to the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA). The case ‘Fertile land users (farmers) vs Union of India’, filed in 2014, about disallowing development on the land acquired by the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) is currently underway.
Narhari Banger, managing director, HSIIDC, said, “We have done our job and the compensation amount which needs to be given for the Panchgaon land has been deposited with the district revenue department.”
He said that the HSIIDC is now only waiting for an approval from the forest department before handing over the formal letter of takeover to the GMDA. “We have shown the letter of the handover of the Panchgaon land to both, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and GMDA. Once the forest approval comes, the toll plaza land will be given to GMDA, who will then give it to the NHAI,” said Banger.
The state government formed a committee of forest officials last week, headed by Vinod Kumar, additional principal chief conservator of forests, Haryana, to ascertain whether the land in question is a part of the wildlife corridor.
The committee met last week to ascertain the claims of some farmers that their land, which is being acquired, forms a part of the wildlife corridor. Subhash Yadav, district forest officer, said, “We are looking into all the maps to make sure that the land in Panchgaon being given to NHAI does not come under the wildlife corridor.”
The officials confirmed that so far, they have not found any evidence to support the claim that the land in question at Panchgaon forms a part of the wildlife corridor. “The toll land in Panchgaon does not belong to the wildlife corridor, which falls under the Aravalli protection area. The toll will be made on the opposite side of KFC at Panchgaon, which is 500 metres from the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway,” said Yadav.
Farmers said that they will protest the move of using their land for setting up a toll plaza.
Sube Singh, farmer, Kukrola, said, “My seven acres is going and I plan to fight it out. Now, we have been left with no alternative but to protest this move by the state government.”
Virender Singh, another farmer, said, “Our land is being taken. There is no way we will take this sitting down.”
Meanwhile, the GMDA doesn’t want a repeat of the Sehrawan situation. In 2018, the state government had announced that the Kherki Daula toll will be shifted to Sehrawan, but the locals approached the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and blocked its transfer to the NHAI.
“The HSIIDC is ready to hand over the land to us; we just wanted to close out this part (forest) before we take it over. We are being doubly sure before we hand over the encumbrance-free land to NHAI,” said V Umashankar, chief executive officer, GMDA.
Source : HT
