Nowhere to go, say building owners hit by Pathankot-Mandi highway project

The work to widen the Pathankot-Mandi highway under Package-1 in Nurpur from Kandwal to Seuni has started. The owners of a large number of commercial and residential buildings have been issued notices, ordering them to vacate their premises and remove debris within two months of receiving the notices.

As many as 900 owners of such buildings will be displaced once the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) acquires them for the highway widening project. Those whose buildings are being acquired partially are a harried lot as they will not be able to use the remaining structures. They say they had spent huge money on the construction of commercial and residential buildings. The affected people, especially from Kandwal to Bodh near Nurpur, say they had received only a fraction of the existing cost of their land from the NHAI. Residents lament that they are facing a lot of hardships while shifting their business establishments, as the price of land has skyrocketed whereas they have got meagre compensation for their land and buildings.