MF AHMAD
Daltonganj, Jan 6: The fate of 12 timber merchants hangs in limbo as the sword of eviction hangs over them. The railway has asked them to vacate the land on which they have been running their timber factory for the last six decades following an order of the Jharkhand High Court.
Moreover, these timber merchants yearn for Uttarakhand’s Haldwani relief where dwellers on the railway land got from the Supreme Court that there will be no bulldozing of their houses.
Notably, the common point between the two is that the timber factories are on the railway land in Daltonganj whereas 4,000 families are on the railway land at Haldwani in Uttarakhand and were asked to vacate it under the order of the High Court.
The eviction case was heard by the Supreme Court on Thursday and the Apex Court stayed the eviction directing the Uttrakhand government and the railway to explain how to go about the issue of living on the land of which there is the contesting version of the claim to the railway land etc.
However, the situation in Daltonganj is far more crucial and complex. The timber merchants have gone for a double bench hearing in the Jharkhand HC as said by one of the 12 timber merchants who is a party in this case, Indrajeet Singh Dimple.
Another timber merchant Gyan Chand Pandey said the Palamu DC Anjaneyulu Dodde has told them of no action against them till January 14 only in matters of eviction on land they have been working upon for decades.
As January 14 is just a week away now, anxiety and tension have gripped the timber merchants. They are worried about what is in store for them. The HC order coming in June 2022 asks for railway land to be vacated and arrears of the licence fee to be paid by the timber merchants.
The 12 timber merchants look forward to Uttarakhand’s Haldwani-type magic relief coming to them but for them here the oddities are larger and more complex.
The merchants look for the humane and sympathetic consideration of the railway but in between them and the railway, there is the High Court order asking the railway to get its land vacated.
Sources said it will not be any easy for the railway to sit over the order of the Jharkhand HC.
Sources added that if and when the railway will act it will mean a total devastation of the timber trade in Daltonganj as moving out of the factories is firstly an enormous task and worse to it where the uprooted timber factories will settle down as there is no such vast open place to accommodate the timber and the factories.
Gyan Chand Pandey and Indrajeet Singh Dimple reiterate that any ouster to the timber factories from the land of the railway will mean 5,000 people getting out of wages/jobs directly or indirectly which will have a far-reaching impact on the poor urban economy.
The timber merchants claim they were never encroachers as they had paid a licence fee to the railway for a long time which the railway had accepted in the past but for some years the railway refused to accept the licence fee from them as part of its own design to make out a case against defaulter timber merchants, said sources.
Gyan Chand Pandey and Indrajeet Singh Dimple maintained that the timber merchants are ready to pay their license fee as fixed earlier on the basis of the plot of land of the railway under the possession of the respective timber merchants and they have remained there for decades.
Sources added the railway unilaterally hiked the licence fee which the timber merchants found too exorbitant and resisted paying the enhanced licence fee since then, the relationship between the two soured.
