Title - Metro to chug below your homes

CHANDIGARH: As many as 20 chunks of private land, which have houses, shops and kiosks constructed on them, will be acquired for Metro Rail project in sectors 22, 34 and 43. The list of Project Affected People (PAP) includes 79 families, which will have to be displaced and rehabilitated elsewhere by the administration. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), in its detailed project report (DPR) submitted to the UT, has pointed out, ''Among the affected families, only five own kiosks and rest are title land owners or tenants. A total of 2.73 ha of private land needs to be acquired apart from 32.52 ha government land.''

The Metro system will be underground in the city limits. For the station under Aroma Chowk, residential land (apart from cycle tracks and service roads) will be acquired; in Sector 34 the identified private property is both residential and commercial and in Sector 43 only land with residential structures will be required. ''The private land will be acquired for different purposes like running sections, stations and other infrastructure services for operations. Residences with ground floor only to up to four stories will have to be displaced. No squatters have been found on this land,'' added the report. DMRC has said that the alignment had been designed in such a way that bare minimum private land was required for construction and subsequent operations.

A socio-economic survey was conducted by DMRC in February and as part of the field studies, the profile of people who own structures on the identified land was also examined in detail. A total of 12 families were interviewed. It was found that the affected families have high education levels.

As the livelihood of the kiosk owners too depends on the space, they too would be compensated as part of the exercise. The DPR was submitted to UT administration last week and copies have also been sent to Punjab and Haryana.