Executive Magistrate directs Circle Officer to investigate facts

Ghatshila, July 29: Villagers blocked the road leading to the 33 KV power substation under construction on the bank of Swarnrekha River at Amainagar. The villagers were protesting against the construction being carried out for the power substation as they claimed that the road to the substation under construction at Amainagar was being built on their recorded and registered land. When the Ghatshila Executive Magistrate, Jay Prakash Karmali reached the spot to verify the villagers’ claim, he saw a tree trunk blocking the route to the Amainagar power substation site. The Executive Magistrate directed the Circle Officer to investigate the veracity of the villagers’ claims. Amainagar villager Dasi Dhibar, one of the protestors, claimed that the land being used to construct the road to the power substation under construction was recorded in the joint names of her in-laws  and said, “Just prior to the construction work for the power substation, the departmental people had conveyed through the Gram Pradhan a promise that persons from my family would be hired for the construction work  but, till the present neither has money been paid for taking over the land nor has anyone from my family has been provided employment. So the villagers who had been given similar assurances and literally duped, have blocked the road in protest and have demanded justice.”

It may be mentioned that the construction of the power substation is nearing completion and setting up a roadblock would prove to be a hindrance to the finishing the remaining work. Executive Magistrate Jay Prakash Karmali said that he had directed the Circle Officer to verify the truth of the villagers’ claims over the road and power substation construction land as registered in their names.