Nawanshahr, August 2- The Directorate of Town and Country Planning, Punjab has ordered the District Town Planner, Hoshiarpur, to make available all records related to Ambuja Cements Limited in his office under RTI.
RTI Activist Parvinder Singh Kitna on March 29, 2025, from the Town and Country Planning Department, Punjab. Under RTI, Ambuja Cements Limited had sought the application for obtaining CLU for the proposed unit in three villages of Hoshiarpur district, Ranyala, Sardullapur and Badhoan, and all the documents attached thereto. It was also asked whether CLU was issued in this regard or not.
In this regard, all the documents related to the letter were sought. The said office had forwarded the letter to the Senior Town Planner Jalandhar and the District Town Planner Office Hoshiarpur, but the District Town Planner wrote a letter to Ambuja Cements Limited Company as a third party and asked whether their information should be given under RTI or not. On this, Ambuja Cements Limited Company did not agree to provide the information and the District Town Planner refused to provide the information to the applicant.
After this, Parvinder Singh Kitna appealed to the Directorate of Town and Village Planning Department and said that the District Town Planner has given the excuse for not providing the information that the information belongs to a third party, whereas the relevant documents for setting up any project are made available to the general public. On this appeal, the Director Town and Urban Planning summoned the Senior Town Planner Jalandhar and the District Town Planner Transport and ordered that all the information sought by the petitioner under RTI should be made available and if the record is not available in the office, then the application should be transferred to the concerned office.
It is worth mentioning here that the people of the area were not informed about the public hearing held by the Ambuja company to set up this cement factory. On the contrary, the people of the area had held a ‘real public hearing’ in which representatives of dozens of villages and many organizations opposed this proposed factory.