SYED ALI SAFVI
SRINAGAR, May 23: The countdown has begun. Days before UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi’s scheduled visit to the valley, the government machinery has started making preparations to make her visit a grand success.
Sonia is expected to arrive here on May 29 to lay foundation stone of a colony for Dal dwellers at Rakh Arath Bemina. She is also expected to inaugurate Sangarmal shopping complex. However, the foundation stone laying ceremony for Dal dwellers may run into rough weather, as the incessant heavy rains have exposed the underbelly of the much-hyped-about project.
Environmentalists and ecologists believe that Rakh Arath project would prove to be a disaster. They have been claiming ad infinitum that construction of concrete structures was not technically feasible and economically reasonable at Rath Arath, covering thousands of kanals of wet land. Without paying heed to the incessant pleas of environmentalists, the government has gone ahead with the project.
About 7526 kanals of land at Rakh Arath Bemina was transferred to Lakes and Water Development Authority (LAWDA) to establish ‘model colony’ based on 14000 plots for rehabilitation of 80000 Dal dwellers. The project soon ran into controversy after some revenue officials were found involved in tempering with land records. The records of Rakh and Farms department are still lying with State Vigilance Organisation (SVO).
Pertinently, the “model colony” has been partially submerged due to the incessant rains, which have exposed the underbelly of the project. If the heavy rains continue to lash the valley for next few days, the colony may get completely flooded enough to cause embarrassment for the government before UPA chairperson.
Spread over five kilometers along 30 feet wide canal, Bemina is a highly flood-prone village. Traditionally, Rakh Arath, which has now been filled with earth, used to act as flood reservoir. The earth filling of Rakh Arath has posed a grave risk to inhabitants of old Bemina who find themselves sandwiched “between devil and the deep sea”.
Earlier, according to reliable sources, the government had decided to construct the houses and allot them to the Dal dwellers, but the idea was shelved at the insistence of engineers who believed that the houses may develop cracks and collapse due to the nature of land.
“It (Rakh Arath) is basically a marshy and muddy land,” said a geologist. “Houses can be constructed, but they will not last long.”
Repeated demands by land owners to the concerned departments for drawing up line to demarcate Rakh Arath fell on deaf ears. The local farmers demanded that demarcation line be drawn so that their privately-owned land is separated from Rakh Arath.
Earlier, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir had framed and directed the committee, headed by then Naib Tehsildar LAWDA, to visit the site and draw the demarcation line separating Rakh Arath and propriety land of the farmers.
Pertinently, minister for animal husbandry, Aga Syed Ruhullah and minister of state for urban development, Nasir Aslam Wani had visited Rakh Arath on July 25, 2009. They had set August 5, 2009 deadline to draw the demarcation line along Rath Arath’s 7600 kanals of land.
The land at Rakh Arath was actually owned by Rakh and Farms unit of Agriculture department, and had been under possession of farmers - most of them landless - for over fifty years.
The farmers alleged that Rakh Arath staff had wrongly included their private land in the Rakh land.
“I have official documents wherein it is clearly written that this land is my private property,” said Mohammad Ishaq of Shareefabad, while pointing towards a patch of land.
The farmers also demand adequate compensation. A paltry sum of Rs 40,000 per kanal has been sanctioned by the government to be paid as compensation, while the market value of per kanal land is more than Rs 10 lakh. However, majority of land owners have not been paid any compensation yet.
Irked by the “step motherly treatment”, a senior citizen of the area, Mohammad Ashraf Bhat, said: “The government, on one hand, has granted ownership rights to people who had forcibly and illegally occupied Sri Sarkar (government land), and on the other hand it is dispossessing the people from the land (Rakh Arath) which has been in their lawful possession over 50 years,” he said.
Dal dwellers, on the other hand, also do not seem very optimistic. According to reports, they are selling off the plots allotted to them.
Pertinently, chief minister, Omar Abdullah, while taking stock of centrally-sponsored Dal and Nageen Lake Development Projects at SKICC, along with Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest, Jairam Ramesh, last year had said that rehabilitation and resettlement of Dal dwellers should form the part of the overall Dal project.
"Dal is not only a lake but a social and eco-system which has direct impact on large chunk of population and the survival of Srinagar city itself,” he had said.
However, Omar’s assertion has proven to be a hoax.
“I fail to understand why Dal dwellers are treated as second-class citizens. No doubt, preserving Dal lake must be government’s prime concern, but that does not mean Dal dwellers be damned,” said a local resident, adding that Dal dwellers were being evacuated from one Dal and pushed into another.
The UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, is expected to reach here on May 29, 2010. She has expressed desire to see the condition of the Dal lake, the pollution level of which had her worried during her last visit to the Valley in October 2009.
According to Congress insiders, Sonia would be undertaking the visit on the invitation of Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand, who also holds portfolios of housing and urban development, which oversees the work of cleaning of Dal lake, since her last visit.
Central government has been quite liberal in funding the Dal cleaning project. On the intervention of Sonia and PM Manmohan Singh, the state government has so far received Rs 356 crore for the project.
Sonia Gandhi is also expected to inaugurate state of art Sangarmal Shopping Complex in Srinagar.
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