ROURKELA: Unethical is often profitable. Some residents of the Steel City have found the easiest way to get rich. How? By grabbing a piece of land belonging to Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), constructing an unauthorised house and selling it on online property trading platforms.
Adopting this illegal practice, some citizens have posted advertisements for ‘houses on sale’ on online marketplace OLX. An encroacher recently posted one such advertisement for sale of an asbestos-roofed house at H Block of Sector-6 in Industrial Township of RSP for around `5.99 lakh. The advertisement mentions a ready-to-move two bedroom house with carpet area of 1,742 sq ft with space for car parking.
The advertisement is a testimony to RSP’s gross failure to protect its land from encroachers. Sources said while the authorities of the Town Services Department of RSP have deliberately turned a blind eye to the growing menace of encroachment, the guardians of RSP land have been accused of being hand-in-glove with encroachers for pecuniary gains. It is further alleged that a few one bedroom RSP quarters have also been occupied illegally.
As per a report of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribe (NCST), RSP had acquired 19,722.69 acre including 14,824.18 acre of private land for its plant and township during the 1950s. Besides, another 11,600 acre of land was acquired 28 km from Rourkela for the Mandira dam project. Subsequently, nearly 5,000 of the total 19,722.69 acre was surrendered to the State Government. Currently, RSP’s plant and marshalling yard, 19 Sectors in RIT limits and the Fertilizer township together occupy more than 9,000 acre of land.
While numerous unauthorised slum settlements cropped up on RSP land some decades back, the menace of encroachment still continues unabated in the Steel city.
Incidentally in April 2016, Chief Secretary AP Padhi had told then Sundargarh Collector BS Poonia to instruct RSP authorities to free around 2,000 acre from encroachers and return the surplus land to the State Government.
RSP Executives’ Association (RSPEA) President Bimal Bisi said during a recent meeting at Delhi, SAIL Chairman had expressed concern over rampant encroachment of RSP’s land and quarters. “The RSP management should strictly protect its valuable immovable assets and consider their gainful use by sub-leasing to retired employees,” Bisis said and added that the slum dwellers should be settled in fixed compact areas on humanitarian basis.