Food court on Rajpur Road: More citizens join protests

DEHRADUN: The issue of a food court being set up on the stretch of Rajpur Road near the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH) and the Presidential retreat ‘Ashiana Annexe’ has prompted many residents to complain to officials urging them to have the work stopped at the earliest. This, they have stressed, is essential in order to protect the area which is regarded as one of the last remaining green stretches in the heart of the city.Reenu Paul, president of Rajpur Community Initiative, a citizen group, has written to governor KK Paul urging him to dissuade the district administration from permitting the food court to come up. “We will soon be meeting the governor and request his urgent intervention in the matter,” she told TOI.
Air Marshal (retired) BD Jayal who recently wrote an open letter to the CM on the issue, said that “concretising this green and pristine belt was an insane idea.” “Don’t we have enough food outlets already in and around this stretch that we need more?”
In a similar vein, Brigadier (retired) KG Behl, president, Sanyukt Nagrik Sangthan, a forum of citizens, said that “the purpose of improving the pavements would be defeated if they are again occupied by vendors.” “The pavements should only be used by pedestrians and walkers and there should be no obstructions by putting up temporary shops in between. It is surprising that instead of removing the vendors who crowd around in that area in the evenings and obstruct the road — which was being objected to by the residents of nearby colonies since a long time — efforts are being made to give them a permanent place,” he said.
Col (retired) Vishal Bhatia, another former defence official put the onus of the project on “bureaucrats who come up with such ideas to please their political masters.” “These kind of projects are thought up by people who are not concerned at all about preserving the natural environment for which Dehradun has always been known for,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mahesh Bhandari, president of Doon Residents Welfare Front which was invited by the district administration to evolve a consensus on the issue, said that they had rebuffed the idea in the meeting with district officials. “We told them that it will pose massive parking and littering problems on the road and should be avoided.”