Ujjain: Affected businessmen, house owners and residents have opposed the plan made in 2017 under the BJP rule under Smart City for the expansion, widening and beautification of Mahakaleshwar temple. According to them, the widening of the roads in front of the temple will cost dismantling of the hotels, other shops and houses. Describing the scheme as biased, they said that about 16 bighas of land including the commercial parking, shops and Mahakal Bhakt Niwas operated by the RSS’ Madhav Seva Nyas have been left abandoned. To present their case, hundreds of affected people reached the town and country planning department (T&CP) office at Bharatpuri during Janasunwai on Wednesday.
700 FAMILIES RESIDE IN THE AREA
President of the Hotel Yatri Graha Association Rajesh Trivedi said that about 700 families reside in front of the temple which includes about 200 hotels and lodges, 300 other types of businessmen and 200 residents. At the same time, through the RSS Madhav Seva Nyas, the lodging arrangements at the Mahakal Bhakt Niwas as well as commercial parking along with restaurants and shops of flower and prasad vendors etc are also being operated and still there is about 14 bighas of land vacant on which similar big projects have been prepared by the RSS. In the name of temple beautification and expansion and that too by eliminating parallel practising businessmen, this partisan scheme has been added under Ujjain’s Master Plan 2021 during the BJP rule under the Smart City Project. With the implementation of the above scheme, more than 5,000 people will become unemployed and many people will become homeless. The above point was put in front of T&CP joint-director Sanjay Mishra, he added.
HEARING WAS POSTOPONED EARLIER
In the past, similar type of hearing was intervened by the office of CM Kamal Nath in which former MLA Dr Batuk Shankar Joshi had an important role and he had taken the matter to Bhopal so as to organise the public hearing at Ujjain itself. Ashok Bhati, Anil Gangwal, Arjun Yadav, Bakirali Rangwala, Javed Qureshi, Sanjay Mehta, Rajesh Rajani, Gopal Tomar, Sanjay Meghwal, Bunty Yadav, Yashwant Agnihotri as well as a large number of businessmen including men and women were present at the T&CP office on Wednesday.
CONG CHIEF’S OBJECTION
City Congress Committee acting president Ravi Rai has objected to the widening of Mahakal area under the Smart City Project. The objection states that the T&CP had proposed to widen the residential area of ??the ancient city for road widening and proposed the area to be widened so that houses, buildings of many areas would have to be broken about 15 to 20 feet, in which almost entire houses will be demolished. People will have to suffer financially and life will be disturbed. Likewise, compensation of Rs 200 crore to the concerned agencies and the land sought by the Municipal Corporation for road widening will also be made as per Municipal Corporation Act. Though, no provision of compensation has been made under the Smart City Project. In such a situation, who will give compensation to the affected citizens of the city is also a question mark on the above modification, he said.
ALTERNATE PLANS
Ravi Rai demanded that the floor ratio in the proposed equipment should be increased to 2.5 or 3.0 as the entire area is being commercially providing facilities to the common devotees and the vision of the government should be that the common devotees should not have to stay at far distance. Therefore, according to the former master plan, the said area should be allowed to remain and the amendment should be canceled from the point number 1 to 5 which will be in the government and public interest. Rai stated that no permission has been given by the Central or State Government for the development work in the Smart City Project, nor has any type of plan been approved. But due to the possibilities of future requirements the office of Smart City has suggested the T&CP to take action to change the master plan to widen the above routes. According to him, there was no traffic problem due to the construction of bridges etc during Simhastha Fair 2016. He said that lands are vacant at places up to Rudrasagar, Jaisingpura, Narsing Ghat in Mahakal area and government can get those lands for development work.
Hearing of objections on mills' land
Under the Smart City Project, the objections submitted by the Ujjain Mill Mazdoor Union in connection with the proposed modification of the Ujjain Mill Mazdoor Union building and land located at Binod-Bimal Mill, Heera Mills and Koyla Phatak were jointly heard by joint-director T&CP on Wednesday. During the hearing of the objections, Ujjain Mill Mazdoor Union president Omprakash Singh Bhadoria kept his side that status-quo should be maintained till the disbursement of due payments of the Binod-Bimal Mill’s retrenched labourers. By the government proper compensation should also be provided for acquiring the land.
