Villagers of Jhumri Charadih in the Koderma district on Tuesday said they will move Jharkhand High Court to save an old pond after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) announced it will occupy a part of the reservoir for an ongoing project.
A team of village residents, led by AJSU’s Shalini Gupta, also met deputy commissioner of Koderma Ramesh Gholap and requested him to take action. Gholap assured them that he would talk to officials of the NHAI and those of the land acquisition department to solve the problem.
NHAI is working on a project to extend the Ranchi-Patna Highway (NH-31) and villagers complained that the authority suddenly started dumping waste bitumen in huge quantities in the pond which has been a lifeline for more than a dozen villages for the last 100 years by providing water for irrigation.