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25 years later, Punjab moves to
regularise housing for 1984 victims
WSN Bureau
 CHANDIGARH: THE
PUNJAB government has decided to regularise unauthorised occupation
of houses and booths by eligible 1984 riot victims and also allot
1,330 new houses to victims.
The government
informed the Division Bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and
Justice Hemant Gupta of the
Punjab and
Haryana High Court that the Council of Ministers, at its meeting
held on December 2, amended the policy regarding the allotment of
plots/houses to riot victims.
The new policy
comes in the wake of High Court directions to the
Punjab
government to submit a sworn statement to clear the air over whether
it would implement a scheme to rehabilitate victims of anti-Sikh
riots.
The Bench of
Chief Justice, in its November 11 order, had stated: “There is
nothing on record before us to show whether any policy regarding the
allotment of booths or residential accommodation was formulated by
the state government for the benefit of riot victims.”
During the
resumed hearing of a petition on Tuesday, praying for a mandamus
seeking directions to the state government to implement decisions
relating to rehabilitation benefits to the victims of the 1984
riots, Anita Bhalla, Under Secretary, Department of Revenue,
Rehabilitation and Disaster Management filed an affidavit.
The affidavit
reads, “It was decided that unauthorised occupation of eligible riot
victims over the houses/booths should be regularised.
Accordingly ,
necessary instructions were issued… for necessary action.” The state
government informed the court that as per the amended policy , land
for 327, 200 and 200 booths at
Ludhiana, S.A.S.
Nagar and Patiala, respectively , would be allotted at 50 per cent
of the last auction price to eligible riot victims by PUDA.
As per the
affidavit, the Cabinet had also approved alloting to the riot
victims 364 government staff quarters in
Ludhiana,
including 69 houses under unauthorised possession of the victims and
295 vacant government staff quarters.
These houses
would be allotted at the price prevailing in 1991-92. The state
government further informed the Bench that there were 637 houses
under unauthorised occupation and that 1,330 other LIG/MIG houses
were available for allotment under this new decision of the
Cabinet. In order to meet the remaining 50 per cent cost of land of
727 booths and 2,017 houses (which includes 50 houses already
allotted to riot victims) Rs 8,102 lakh had been released to
Department of Housing and Urban Development on January 15.
As per the
policy , the eligible riot victims are those who had migrated to
Punjab
from
November 1, 1984, to December 11, 1985, due to the November 1984
riots and had got themselves registered with deputy commissioners of
the districts in which they had been residing. As per the earlier
decision, all Sikh migrant widows, destitutes, etc.
21 January 2009
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