Leaders of the Left parties here on Monday demanded that the residents of Khori Basti, an unauthorised colony on forest land, be rehabilitated and compensated before carrying out the demolition drive in adherence to the Supreme Court order.
The demand was made by a joint delegation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India leaders in a memorandum addressed to Chief Minister Manohar Lal submitted at the Faridabad Deputy Commissioner office.
They demanded rehabilitation arrangements be made before carrying out the demolition drive and added that most of the residents had lost their jobs due to lockdowns and did not have resources to rent houses. The delegation demanded that all residents be shifted to relief camps.
‘Conduct survey’
The leaders also demanded that survey be conducted before the demolition drive to prepare the list of the owners of the houses so that they can be compensated later. Led by CPM district secretary Shiv Prasad and CPI district secretary Bechu Giri, the delegation said the largescale unauthorised construction in the colony could not be facilitated without the connivance of the civic body, the police department and the forest department. The leaders said the poor residents were duped by the real estate agents to buy land at the colony.
The Supreme Court had on June 7 directed the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF) to remove encroachments on the forest land without any exception within six weeks. The matter is listed for hearing on July 27.
MCF Commissioner Garima Mittal told The Hindu that the civic body had not decided on the date of demolition, but the court orders would be implemented “in letter and spirit”. She said that no rehabilitation plan was discussed so far. The civic body also carried out a drone survey of the said colony on June 9. Spread across 170 acres, the colony has 5,158 houses, 80 shops, five educational institutes, 36 social, public utility and religious structures and two industrial units.
Most of the residents are migrants who came to Faridabad to work at mines in the Aravali and bought plots on the said land in early 1990s.
