The committee headed by parliamentary secretary and Rajpur Road MlA Rajkumar to look into the condition of slums and prepare a road map for development of slum settlements will soon hold a meeting with officials concerned. The committee chairman has already held a meeting with the principal secretary, Urban Development.
Rajkumar informed The Pioneer, “I have already discussed relevant issues with the principal secretary. There are 123 identified slum settlements in the State capital. The committee will first focus on these slums where the authorities have already provided facilities like roads, drinking water supply and power supply among others. After this we will focus on the slum settlements that have not yet been marked by the authorities. The committee will hold a meeting with officials concerned in the near future and tour the identified slum settlements in the State capital before focusing on slum settlements in towns of other districts,” he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Chief Minister had made Rajkumar the head of the committee with Municipal Corporation of Dehradun Mukhya Nagar Adhikari (MNA) Harak Singh Rawat as member secretary, MCD leader of opposition Neenu Sehgal, former leader of opposition in Haridwar municipality Sanjay Sharma, Khajan Pande and Sehila Kakkar as its member to look into issues like regularisation of slums and rehabilitation of slum residents. The committee is supposed to make recommendations and prepare a road map for development of slum settlements in the State.
It is worth mentioning here that slums encroaching on Government land and riverbeds in the State capital cause various problems to the residents themselves and the city in general. Recently, the MCD had attempted to free its land from encroachment in the Brahmawala area but political interference had resulted in the residents demanding ownership right to the place they have encroached in stead of accepting rehabilitation in flats constructed by the authorities for relocating them.