CHANDIGARH: Even as the contested issue of a proposed three-tier parking lot for the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has not received clearance, a fresh chapter has opened with a “kutcha” and “illegal” parking lot coming up in the green space belonging to the engineering department and extending to Uttar Marg.
The site lies adjacent to the road that branches off right from the rotary on Uttar Marg and leads to the Punjab and Haryana civil secretariat as well as the HC. Trees are lying in the cleared space and wildlife like territorial ‘Sambars’ have been forced to move away as cars of lawyers and litigants are parked right up to Uttar Marg. “No permission has been granted to use the land as a parking lot from the UT administration. We will not allow anyone to resort to such acts. I am dispatching my team immediately to the spot and we will resort to fencing and trenches to prevent any parking of cars on UT land,” chief engineer CB Ojha, told TOI when this correspondent brought the matter to his attention.
Debendra Dalai, UT chief conservator of forests-cum-chief wildlife warden has ordered an inspection of the “parking” site by range forest officer Praveen Yadav. “The land does not belong to us, but to the engineering department. No recommendation has been made by the tree felling committee comprising representatives from the engineering department, municipal corporation and forests department to remove any tree, dead or otherwise, from the site,” Yadav told TOI after his tour.
“A proposed three-tier parking lot on UT land for the HC has been held up and permission not granted because it falls within the eco-sensitive zone of the Sukhna lake and the Capitol Complex, which was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site," Dalai told the TOI. The site bears signs of heavy machinery being used to clear the area and roots of some trees left standing have been badly affected. The remaining trees, pushed to the fringes of the “parking lot” were rich in bird life such as Ring-necked parakeets, Jungle babblers, and Common mynas with old littering of ‘Sambars’ strewing the ground below .
When contacted by TOI, president of the HC bar association, GBS Dhillon, claimed, “We have the permissions for the parking lot. The site was cleaned by the administration for the recent G20 events.” However, Dhillon was unable to furnish any evidence of the “permissions”.
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