Construction goes on for the Jharkhand war memorial. The boundary of the project has allegedly encroached upon 8ft of NH-33 near Booty more in Ranchi. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, July 31: The prestigious Jharkhand war memorial coming up at Dipatoli cantonment in the state capital has courted controversy. Its boundary has allegedly encroached upon NH-33.

The national highways wing of the state road construction department has issued a notice to the army authorities, the custodian of the ambitious project, mentioning that they had encroached upon 8ft of the road for constructing its boundary wall.

“We have issued a notice stating that about 8ft of the total road width has been encroached upon by the army while constructing the boundary wall-like structure of the upcoming memorial, that would showcase the achievements of the army. But despite our notice, the army people failed to communicate with us,” said Rajesh Kumar, the executive engineer of the Ranchi division of NH wing of state road construction department.

The army, has, however trashed the allegation of encroachment.

Lt Col R.K. Singh, the spokesperson of the army at Dipatoli Cantonment, said the army had not encroached upon the national highway. The construction had been done within the existing boundaries of the cantonment, he argued.

“In contrary, the area earlier encroached by vehicles and makeshift shops was cleared. It’s a noble project that would be inaugurated very soon,” Singh added.

Sources, however, said that army officials have verbally said that they would raze construction on the encroached land, if any, if expansion work of the highway is undertaken in future.

The executive engineer of the Ranchi division of NH wing of state road construction department said the national highway body has right over total 70ft road width — 35 feet each on both the sides from the centre of the highway. The existing road with flanks is of 12m width and the encroachment has been done beyond that.

Technically total 70ft width is called right of way (RoW) and it has been allegedly encroached upon.

The road construction department has sent a written request to Ranchi deputy commissioner Avinash Kumar to interfere in the matter at the district administration-level as the issue could turn into a law and order issue.

Kumar could not recall if any NH wing people had approached him with the specific problem, though.

“During visit to those areas it does not appear that the road width has decreased. Moreover, this is not a major issue and can always be sorted out through talks between the army and government officials,” he said.

Significantly, there are plans of making NH-33 four-lane. The project is hanging in balance since last couple of years. The Centre’s effort to start work on the project did not take off as not a single party turned up to bid for the project on built, own, operate and transfer basis on three occasions.

The Union ministry of road transport and highways would invite a fresh tender for the project soon on annuity basis.