Eviction drive was carried out by Dimapur district administration and national highway department Thursday from New Field gate till New Dhansiri Bridge for the proposed two lane NH 29 diversion.
29 temporary (Thatch) houses, trees, temporary parking lot for rickshaws near Amar mill, nursery and one government quarter belonging to veterinary department were also demolished during the eviction which was carried out early Thursday morning till late evening.
Briefing media at the eviction site, deputy commissioner Dimapur, N. Husheli Sema said that the “illegal settlers” were given prior notice to vacant the site. “In January we asked them to vacant the site within 15 days from the date of notice”, said Sema. She added “We were to carry out the eviction by last year December but we did not because we do not want to hurt the people’s sentiments during Christmas”.
She pointed out that the NH 29 diversion land was acquired in the year 2000 from 68 land owners and a payment of `3, 19, 67,397 was made to the land owners as compensation for the total distance of 1.3 kilometers.
Asserting that the exercise was successful, the deputy commissioner expressed hope that the national highway department would expedite the work. She said that even if eviction has been carried out and if the site was left vacant then the land could be occupied again.
The deputy commissioner also pointed out that if the road diversion was created, traffic congestion in Hotel Tragopan point and Burma camp would ease. Sema then said that during the eviction there was co-operation from people of the neighborhood, national highway department staff, police, electricity department etc.
EE (NH) Kohima division, Engineer Fineson Pojar said that initially this site was proposed for four-laning starting from Nagaland gate which was 234 meters away from centre line to Purana Bazaar junction making up to 2 kms but the idea was “abandoned” as there were “lots of problems”. Four lane has now been diverted to the northern side i.e. from Kahatkati to Patkai bridge NH 29, added Pojar.
Even though the idea of four-laning could not be “materialized” in the first proposed site, he said that the department has approached the ministry to at least take up two-laning in the site.
Nagaland was a very “peculiar state having our own land ownership” law, therefore until and unless right of way (RoW) was cleared, the project would become a stumbling block many a time, said Pojar.
However, he added that since RoW was “clear” from New Field gate to New Dhansiri Bridge, the EE (NH) Kohima division was optimistic that when the ministry comes to visit the site, the work could be taken up easily.
On four lane proposal, he said that RoW became a problem as there was a railway track on the way saying that since four-laning should be a continuous process, the proposed four lane could not be taken up.
On eviction Pojar said that even if eviction has been carried out, the site could be occupied again if security fence was not put up saying that during the eviction they have come across sites where people have dislocated the boundary pillars that were set up by the department.
He then said that the next course of exercise would be to survey again with the original map and instrument to really indentify the boundary after which they might erect the fencing.
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