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A house, which is built on a 1,600 sqm plot in Ghaziabad’s Mandola, is part of a legal case pending in the Supreme Court due to which operations on the Delhi-Dehradun expressway remain suspended
The construction of the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway is complete, but a legal dispute over a 1,600 sqm plot in Mandola is delaying the project. (Image: @rsliveIndia/X)
The work of the Delhi-Dehradun expressway is almost complete but one house in Ghaziabad’s Mandola stands in its way. Owned by Veersen Saroha’s family, which has lived there since the 1990s, the modest residence is built on a 1,600 sqm plot and is part of a legal case pending in the Supreme Court, due to which operations remain suspended.
But, the dispute is not new. It began in 1998 when Veersen moved the Allahabad High Court against the acquisition of his land for the Mandola housing scheme under the Uttar Pradesh Housing Board.
While the housing scheme never materialised due to protests and procedural delays, the board was only too happy to hand over the acquired land from others to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Even then, Veersen’s family was the only one to refuse to give away land to the authorities.
The house still stands as it is even as other people around him took compensation and handed over their land to the government. The expressway stretches on two sides of the house, one all the way to Akshardham and the other to the hills of Uttarakhand.
Construction has been completed on both sides of the expressway. According to a report published by the Times of India, the NHAI is building the expressway in two sections – 14.7 km from Akshardham to Loni on the UP border and 16 km from Loni to Khekra at the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE).
The two-storey house, which is now lying vacant, stands in the middle of all this as the biggest hurdle in the operations of the expressway. “Work has been held up because of litigation as the owner of the house and his family have filed a case in the Supreme Court,” an NHAI official told ToI.
The report said when the Mandola housing scheme was announced, the government had offered compensation at Rs 1,100 per sqm. Around 1,000 farmers and homeowners had been affected, but 94 per cent of them took the payout, it said. The NHAI official told ToI that Veersen was among the few who refused despite the compensation rates being raised.
According to the NHAI, the expressway can be ready by June but delays are possible due to this legal complication. The Supreme Court has now handed over the hearing of this case to the Lucknow bench. The next hearing will be on April 16.
Will Veersen’s family leave their land after taking compensation or will this legal battle drag on? It remains to be seen. Once the Delhi-Dehradun expressway is operational, it will take only 2.5 hours to reach Dehradun from Delhi instead of six hours.
The expressway’s Delhi-Baghpat section is ready, which is 32 km. The 17-km section in Delhi is elevated while the remaining 15-km stretch is in Ghaziabad and Baghpat.
The expressway has been connected to the EPE near Mavikala village in Baghpat. It starts from Akshardham and passes through Laxmi Nagar, Geeta Colony, Shastri Park, Kartar Nagar, Khajuri Khas, Ankur Vihar, Sharda City, Loni, Mavikala NBCC Township and goes towards Dehradun via Baghpat.
- Location :
Ghaziabad, India, India