1764 Vacant Plots Available; India Post Functioning From Rented Space
Y.S. Rana
The writer is a Hamirpur based Himachali settled in Chandigarh
Have you ever heard of a landlord who owns over 1700 plots across the country and yet pays crore of rupees for rented space in the same locations? Or leaves plots in prime locations unoccupied for more than 150 years? It seems incredible but it is so with the India Post. According to the Ministry of Communications, the postal department has 1764 vacant plots which can be used for construction of postal buildings. Of these, 207 plots are encroached upon. According to its own admission, the department of posts has more or less four crore square feet, or a little less than 900 acres vacant land in almost all states across the country. Some of which are acquired, purchased or gifted to it more than 50 years ago. But lack of funds has forced it to leave the plots vacant all these years and function from rented accommodation.
Assistant Postmaster General, Himachal Postal Circle, Shimla, M.R. Dahia while talking to Himachal This Week said that circle has vacant plots allotted to it in Himachal Pradesh. The circle was bifurcated from the Punjab Postal Circle in 1986. Sources stated that the ministry of communications had also asked the states to initiate proceedings to remove encroachments from postal department properties with assistance of local administration. It is also stated that at present the circle has 49 head post offices, 114 Mukhya Dak Ghar (MDG) and 287 sub-post offices are functioning from rented buildings in the state. The postal circle needed 36 sites for MDG; 17 plots for 17 head post offices and 67 sites for sub-post offices in the state. Being a hill state, the department has opened one-man post offices even in remote areas for common man.
Himachal Pradesh Postal Circle comprised nine postal divisions, one RMS division, one postal store depot and covering an area of 55,673 square kms and has the distinction of having highest post office in the world. The official also admitted that rental liability of the department came to lakh of rupees and continued to increase per month. The construction of its own buildings would be the preference in the 12th Five-year plan. Preservation of 38 heritage buildings, including one in Shimla, which have architectural value and invaluable assets of the department was on the priority list.
The Planning Commission had constituted a working group on postal sector to make recommendations in 2011. Its major challenges are to consolidate the gains and benefits of information technology industry for common man. The department is working to map 810 head post offices including Himachal Pradesh in a bid to extend the ambit of the postal schemes. These would be opened in the third phase after completion of mapping and feasibility of post offices.
The official of Punjab Postal Circle, Chandigarh, on the condition of anonymity said that it was a different matter that the department spent around Rs 68 crore in renting space including to meet litigation costs. All these years, the department could not arrange resources at its disposal to meet construction costs and hence, a number of plots were lying vacant. The department has also brought to the notice of a parliamentary panel that against its demand of Rs 745 crore during the tenth five-year plan, it was given Rs 98.5 crore for construction purposes. The Indian Postal network services is the largest in world with over 19,000 pin codes with 1.50 lakh post offices in 35 States and Union Territories. It covers 90% of rural areas and 10% of urban areas of the country.
21 Vacant Plots in Himachal
According to India Post admission, the department has 1764 vacant plots. Of these, 21 plots are in Himachal Pradesh, 14 in Punjab, 12 in Haryana, four plots in Chandigarh and six plots in Jammu and Kashmir.
403 Prime Locations
Whatever be the reason, but it is a reality that in the absence of its own buildings, the department has had to take rented accommodation at nearly 1400 places. Earlier, the department told the parliamentary panel that 403 plots were in prime locations, with 63 of these in Kerala, 62 in Rajasthan, 42 in Maharashtra and 35 in Karnataka. While where there is a rush for office space, the department posts has no option except to take it on rent. 22,022 of the 26,504 post offices were functioning from rented accommodation with only 4484 or 17% located in department’s own buildings. Even in the buildings owned by the postal department, some of them have been declared heritage structures thus further squeezing its space.
Himachal-o-Meter
The state’s ups and downs this week
E-Court Project Inaugurated
Shimla: Advocates and litigants now dont need to visit courts repeatedly to know about their case status as Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol has inaugurated e-court project at the District Court Complex, Shimla. With the inauguration of this project, litigants as well as advocates can now easily know the status of their cases through SMS service. On activation of the SMS service, auto-generated SMSs would be sent to the parties as well as to advocates at different stages of their court cases filed/pending in the District Court, Shimla. However, before availing the aforesaid facility of SMSs, the parties and advocates would have to get their valid mobile numbers registered in the database of the Case Management Information System (CMIS) of the district court. While inaugurating the e-court project, acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol requested the advocates as well as litigants to take maximum advantage of SMS services by furnishing their correct particulars about their mobile numbers and e-mail addresses at the time of filing of their cases, so that auto-generated information about their case was sent to them and their valuable time was not wasted in collecting information by visiting the judicial branch. The Acting Chief Justice has also informed that SMS services had already been started in 10 court complexes on the headquarters of 10 civil and sessions divisions’ on the SMS Gateway of National Informatics Centre Services Incorporated.
9,907 Cases Of Illegal Mining In Himachal
Shimla: Mining wing of the state industries department has submitted its report related to cases of illegal mining reported in different parts of state up to March month to the state government. The report reveals that Kangra witnessed maximum cases of illegal mining in first three months of this year followed by Mandi at second place and Solan at third place respectively. According to report, a total of 9907 cases of mining were reported all over the state during above said period. Kangra topped this list with 3075 cases followed by 1606 cases reported in Mandi and 975 cases in Solan district. The figures clearly indicates that the state government has not achieved much success in its drive against illegal mining despite taking many actions. However the only thing of respite for mining department is that its decision of giving powers to other departments to nab the illegal miners has started yielding results with 104 cases of mining caught by forest department and 94 cases by revenue department. The mining department itself has caught 2542 cases of illegal mining in different parts of the state.
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