CHENNAI: 'Delay in land retrieval at BPCL petrol bunk raises doubts'

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai, on September 24, 2010:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/delay-in-land-retrieval-raises-doubts/209524.html

CHENNAI: Repeated last-minute delays in retrieving one ground of land encroached by a Bharat Petroleum-owned petrol bunk at Chamiers Road-Boat Club Road intersection has raised a strong suspicion among the locals who were fighting against the agency for two years.

The latest encroachment removal drive by the Chennai Collectorate at the BPCL bunk for September 16 was ‘given up’ at the last minute.

Speaking to Express, R Natarajan, a research scholar and the one who unearthed the encroachment through RTI applications, said, “Though the truth about the land had been clearly established, the deliberate delays in taking it back from BPCL raised suspicion of collusion between lower-rung officials and BPCL. According to Natarajan, one ASM Kader and Company earlier managed the petrol bunk and sold it to BPCL 14 years ago. Since then, the oil major operates it as company-owned company-operated (COCO) outlet here.

However, alterations done by the company in 2008 raised eyebrows among the locals and Natarajan sought the RTI route to find details about the extra land where a big underground tank was fixed to store petroleum products.

Based on Natarajan’s appeal that time, Chennai Corporation has sent a ‘stop-work’ notice to the bunk to ascertain the truth about the extra land at the bunk. Before the civic body could take any action, BPCL went to court with the contention that the land belonged to the agency.

However, an enquiry by the Corporation after court direction revealed that BPCL had encroached about 2310 sqft of land belonging to the Revenue Department near the bunk.

After the encroachment by BPCL was clearly established in the court also, tahsildar of Mylapore-Triplicane sent letters to all departments concerned to give support to retrieve the one ground land from the bunk.

Despite clearance from all agencies including the corporation, which was mandated to remove the encroachment, the planned drive on September 16 was ‘given up’ in the last minute. Will the drive to reclaim the encroached land happen in future, questioned Natarajan.