The lack of an approach road to Antriksh Forest, a society in Sector 77, Noida, has been causing residents a lot of inconvenience. But it seems officers of Noida Authority have been deferring this development work without any valid reason for the past few months.
Officers from different departments of the Authority differ on why work is getting stalled. Can the delay then be pegged on a communication gap within the Authority?
An officer in the civil department considers the issue of land acquisition the main problem. The land, he says, belongs to the state government, but farmers cultivating the land had moved Allahabad High Court in 2015 against land acquisition and the court had put a stay order on it. The farmers refused to accept any compensation and now claim their right on the land. The civil officer said that if it was proved that the local district administration could give away the piece of the land for the development of the approach road, the farmers would not be given any compensation.
An officer with the department of revenue (land), on the other hand, while admitting there was a dispute over land acquisition, said he had found a way to solve the problem amicably.
JP Yadav, the tahsildar responsible for acquiring the piece of land on behalf of the Authority, said, “Since there is no approach road to the society, and it is a genuine problem, the farmers and the Authority arrived at an agreement. If a farmer’s land is acquired for road development, he will be compensated with a piece of land owned by the Authority.”
When City Spidey contacted the Chief Engineer Office (Civil), Noida Authority, RK Sharma, assistant project engineer, immediately instructed his juniors to expedite official work. He said that the road would be developed before the monsoons this year.
