Rajeev Khanna
The picturesque Himachali hill station of Kasauli that has been profiled as a top tourist destination in various travel magazines, travelogues and documentaries have off late been making to the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Today it stands out as a classical example of what is going wrong in the Himachal Pradesh and how the successive governments and administration have failed in their duty.
Over the last couple of years it has been the judicial institutions like the Supreme Court, the Himachal Pradesh High Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that have stepped in to protect the interest of the society at large following efforts made by social activists at repeated intervals.
The place has been plagued by rampant illegal construction that was allowed by the successive Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments. While the politicians kept promising retention policies, the officials kept turning a blind eye to what was happening while taking their cuts. Things took an ugly turn earlier this year when a woman member of the team supervising demolitions on the order of Supreme Court was shot dead. A Public Works Department (PWD) employee, who was injured in the shootout, succumbed to his injuries later.
The state government told the Apex court last week that departmental action has been initiated against erring public servants posted in Kasauli when unauthorized constructions happened there. It said that preliminary inquiry has been initiated against public servants, who were found to be negligent in performing their duties, and show cause notices have been also issued to them.
Heads need to roll and responsibility must be fixed on those who give environmental and other clearances for illegal constructions.
Local activists point out that the biggest threat comes from the permissions granted with impunity under Section 118 of Himachal Land Reforms and Tenancy Act that otherwise restricts the transfer of the land in favor of a person who is not an agriculturist of this state. This has also led to massive felling of trees to make way for construction.
The locals also feel that a court supervised audit of aforestation done in lieu of trees chopped for both government and private projects is also a need of the hour. The people need to know how many trees have been chopped, how many planted in their place, where these trees have been planted, their species and their survival rate.
The recent High Court order directing the state government and the Himachal Pradesh Ground Water Authority to examine each and every aspect of permissions granted for tapping ground water and to re-visit the existing rules and regulations for taking an appropriate policy decision is another pointer to how misuse of ground water has been allowed with impunity to allow a few private properties access to ground water while denying the same to the society at large.
Activists like Rajeev Kaundal point out that several individuals and even private schools have been tapping ground water illegally and the government needs to probe this.
Local Right to Information activists (RTI) approached the police on Tuesday seeking protection for their associate Chetan Kumar who was allegedly assaulted on Monday night. The activists later held a media briefing where Chetan claimed that the attack on his mother and him was carried out by ‘Hotel mafia’ and was linked to the panic among those tapping ground water illegally in the wake of the High Court judgement. Sources said a cross case was registered in the matter.
There have also been instances of individuals raising obstructions on public paths to prevent movement of people. In one of the cases, the High Court recently ordered the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Solan as well as the Tehsildar, Kasauli to visit the site within one week from the date of order and ensure that the obstruction, if any, in the public path was removed. These authorities were directed to continue monitoring the place, where the alleged obstruction was caused periodically and at least once in two weeks to ensure that there is no breach of an order passed earlier.
Now these are not the issues for which an international tourist destination should be making headlines. The most ironical thing among all this is that the state’s minister for social justice an environment Rajiv Saizal comes from this area and such developments are going on under his nose. It is time the state government led by Jai Ram Thakur steps in to set an example of governance so that not only the common people of Kasauli but of entire state get a confidence boost.
