Is CM?s driver mightier than MSY baby?

THE Lucknow Development Authority?s move to shift the 132 kva power sub-station to facilitate the expansion of Lohia Park in Gomti Nagar may hit a road block.

THE Lucknow Development Authority’s move to shift the 132 kva power sub-station to facilitate the expansion of Lohia Park in Gomti Nagar may hit a road block.

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The power sub-station has to be shifted to a place where a mighty relative of a driver in the Chief Minister’s camp office runs a college. And that’s what is scuttling the LDA’s plan.

The sources say the development agency had offered 10 acres of land in village Malesemau in Gomti Nagar to the UP Power Corporation bosses for shifting the sub-station located adjacent to Lohia Park. Since the move involved expansion of a park that is CM’s baby, the power corporation brass readily accepted the offer.

Things were moving smoothly till the management of the Chandra Inter College run by one Mohd Shafiq got wind of the plan. The college, according to sources, and 8 houses in Malesemau of Gomti Nagar were located on the same 10-acre land that was to be handed over to the power corporation. The occupants including the college authorities were told to pack their bags and offered alternative piece of land by the LDA in one of its housing scheme and make way for the power sub-station. That the plan was being accorded top priority can be gauged from the fact that the LDA also offered to pay a six- month monetary compensation package at Rs 1500 per month to the owners of each of these houses to vacate their dwellings.

However, the plan got stuck when Shafiq, with the help of his powerful relative, is said to have pulled strings with the powers that be that made things particularly hot for the executive engineer of LDA in-charge of the land acquisition. The poor engineer was unceremoniously divested of his responsibilities. This happened two weeks back. In the meantime, the LDA officials put their head together to work out a solution and redraft their proposal to the power corporation.

“We have re-drawn the boundaries of the 10-acre land in question. The college no longer figures among the structures that require to be shifted/demolished,” said LDA’s new man on the job. On Tuesday, the development agency plans to demolish the eight houses and rehabilitate their inhabitants to another location.

“There are no hiccups now, we have resolved the issue and the power corporation authorities have accepted our proposal and work to relocate the sub-station would commence soon,” said another LDA official requesting anonymity. As if to buttress his claim, he said that the executive engineer, who was stripped off his charge is back in the saddle.