Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) has planned to urge the railway authorities concerned to ‘give up’ the ‘unused’ railway land for the poor people, who have been living there for many years.

Such a decision was taken today after Siliguri mayor Goutam Deb held a series of meetings with the authorities concerned for providing deed of land rights (patta) among the people in urban areas following instructions from the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee.

It was decided the SMC will write a letter to the railways through the government of West Bengal shortly.

Notably, Siliguri mayor pointed the issue of distribution of urban pattas, which were pending since many days due to technical issues, and sought chief minister’s permission to execute the SMC’s proposed plan, ahead of Lok Sabha polls.

In response to Mr Deb’s appeal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, during her speech in her official programme in Siliguri on 29 January, instructed the district magistrates for the execution of the proposed plan.

Following the instructions of the chief minister, mayor Deb recently held meetings with both the district magistrates of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri separately and discussed the issues related to patta distribution.

Speaking to the reporters here, mayor Goutam Deb said: “Authorities concerned in association with the SMC will start surveying the land for distribution of patta following verification of entitlement. After earmarking land authorities, it will also verify the applicants, whether they are entitled to obtain the land rights.

According to Mr Deb, there were large unused land stretches belonging to the Indian Railway in Siliguri and in New Jalpaiguri areas and over one lakh people have been living on those plot of lands in different locations since many days. They have already got holding number of their homes from the SMC. To develop those slum areas there are roads, electricity and drinking water connections for them.

Notably, since chief minister Mamata Banerjee has named slum areas as Uttaran and asked the mayor to earmark slum areas serially, the SMC has taken the initiative to resolve the land issues here with the cooperation of Indian Railway.

“At present, the railways do not have any scopes to use those ‘encroached’ land for official or commercial purposes. Railway authorities sometimes lease out unused land to others commercially but the poor people are in no position to accept the lease out system by paying money. So, our proposal is if the railway authorities give up those plots of lands and allow the state government to provide land rights among the present inhabitants, they will be getting a permanent address here,” Siliguri mayor Goutam Deb said.

“We have planned to write a letter to the railway authorities concerned through the state government on this issue. We will also approach the state government to take up the matter with the railways soon,” Mr Deb added.

Mr Deb also said another survey will be conducted in association with the irrigation and waterways department to determine its land on the banks of the river Mahananda, where people have been living since many days after the river changed its course.