The demolition drive to evict encroachers from government land would virtually prove another deluge for most of the oustees as it would raze almost half of the new Bilaspur town, says Jai Kumar, a resident of Bilaspur.
Jai, who is also the general secretary of forum constituted to fight for the rights of Bhakra Dam oustees, said at the time of construction of Bhakra dam, the residents of old Bilaspur town were promised better rehabilitation.
“The then Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru had promised better location for settlement and some of them were even provided small plots in new township, though the entire rehabilitation package was inadequate,” he said.
Over 240 villages alongside the Satluj River were affected by construction of Bhakra Dam and they were submerged in the Govind Sagar reservoir on 1 July, 1954.
Many of the displaced residents of the old town were allotted plots (approximately 135 sq mts) in a new town while others settled down wherever they found suitable plots.
During the course of time, the families expanded and to accommodate the family members, they extended their existing constructions to vacant land surrounding their dwelling places.
This resulted in the development of a new township above the old one at an elevation of 673 metres above the sea level.
However, after 60 years, around 345 residents out of which 107 are Bhakra Dam oustees, have recently been served with notices for demolition of illegal structures constructed on government land.
The demolition drive is likely to begin shortly and the residents are up in arms against the administration’s move.
The local residents are staging a protest and are planning to meet Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur under local MLA Subhash Thakur to seek policy for oustees.
“Even after 60 years, around 4,200 oustees are still running from pillar to post to seek promised rehabilitation package, but the successive governments in the state so far had failed to address the issue,” he said.
Sandeep Sankhyan, another resident of Bilaspur town, blamed the administration for their failure to formulate concrete policy for their rehabilitation and said the HP High Court had asked the government to come up with a comprehensive policy to settle claim of oustees during the previous regime.
“Though the failure to come up with a solution to problem has resulted in the court ordering demolition of illegal structures in Bilaspur town,” he said, adding this would prove another calamity, bigger than submerging of old town.
It is worthwhile to mention here that the old Bilaspur town, situated at around 90 km from here, was founded by the then Raja of Kehlur state, Deep Chand in 1650 as the capital of his princely state near ‘Beas Gufa’, named after Rishi Vyas.
Chand had built a palace called ‘Dholar’ overlooking the river and it was earlier called as Vyaspur and the town later came to be known as Bilaspur.
The original town which was established by the Chandel dynasty was submerged in the ’Govind Sagar’ on 1 July, 1954.