Shal­iza Has­sanali

Con­struc­tion of the $100 mil­lion Va­len­cia by­pass has hit a bumpy road.Pro­gramme man­ag­er of the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (Pure) Hay­den Phillip on Fri­day con­firmed that the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, un­der which Pure falls, has been faced with de­lays with the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar by­pass. Gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed the by­pass was to be com­plet­ed just be­fore end of 2014.Once con­struct­ed, the by­pass is ex­pect­ed to bring an end to years of con­ges­tion for mo­torists head­ing in­to Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande and To­co.

The by­pass is be­ing de­layed by the 29 res­i­dents at KP Lands and Kan­galee Street, whose homes and agri­cul­tur­al plots are in the path of the by­pass.Work on the four-kilo­me­tres high­way be­gan on the out­skirts of the two squat­ting set­tle­ments a few weeks ago. How­ev­er, the work has stalled.

Phillip said de­spite sev­er­al con­sul­ta­tions with the res­i­dents and stake­hold­ers, prob­lems con­tin­ue to crop up.On Wednes­day, Phillip said, he spoke to Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan about the is­sues that were ham­per­ing their work.Pure's headache in­volves new squat­ters grab­bing state lands, while in­di­vid­u­als pos­ing as farm­ers be­gan seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for crops that were re­cent­ly plant­ed.

"It is all kinds of prob­lems. This will have an ef­fect on the sched­ule of work we have to do."Phillip said to­mor­row a meet­ing would be held with stake­hold­ers and Ram­bachan: "hope­ful­ly to get this thing sort­ed out."Phillip said work on the Sil­i­ca Sands and Bar­bu­da roads have start­ed, while con­struc­tion of two bridges at KP Lands and Kan­galee Street were be­ing de­layed.He, how­ev­er, could not say when con­struc­tion of the by­pass would be­gin at these two sites."Hope­ful­ly by Mon­day (to­mor­row) I will know."

Four con­trac­tors, three­p­has­es for con­struc­tion

The agen­cies work­ing to get the high­way con­struct­ed are the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, Pure, and the Lands Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA).The Web site of the min­istry stat­ed that con­struc­tion of the by­pass would be done in three phas­es.

�2 Phase one en­tails re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Bar­bu­da Ex­ten­sion and will in­clude con­struc­tion of con­crete drainage chan­nels.

�2 In phase two, Sil­i­ca Sands Road will be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed and widened to in­clude two lanes and shoul­ders.

�2 The fi­nal phase will be the con­struc­tion of a new road­way that will take com­muters to the East­ern Main Road, af­ter Va­len­cia Junc­tion.

Four con­trac­tors–Seereer­am Broth­ers, Jusam­co, Coos­al, and Lutch­mans­ingh Trans­port have been hired to un­der­take the work, which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by the end of 2014, Phillip said.Asked if the $100 mil­lion by­pass would be mon­ey well spent, Phillip said KP Lands and Kan­galee fall with­in the Aripo Sa­van­nah, which is a pro­tect­ed for­est re­serve."There are in­dige­nous plants in there that no where else in the world has. Peo­ple are not sup­posed to be there."

Once the by­pass is con­struct­ed, a fence will bor­der the area to de­ter squat­ters from gain­ing en­try, Phillip said.He said if the res­i­dents and farm­ers show re­sis­tance, the mat­ter would be han­dled."Each agency said they are go­ing to do what they have to do."If every­thing goes ac­cord­ing to plan, Phillip said, work on the by­pass could restart this week.

Haz­ar: Res­i­dentsrun­ning work­ers out

CEO of the LSA Haz­ar Ho­sein said the squat­ters were not cov­ered by law and so, could not de­mand gov­ern­ment hous­es."How could that be fair to oth­er cit­i­zens of the coun­try who have been wait­ing in line for hous­ing? This can­not be a free for all. Whose land it is? It is the State's land."Haz­ar ad­mit­ted the LSA was faced with chal­lenges.

"This is pos­ing as a prob­lem. We hired con­sul­tants to do the land use plan in the Kan­galee area be­cause we want to do prop­er de­vel­op­ment works such as roads and drains, and the res­i­dents run the peo­ple out last week."De­vel­op­men­tal work is ex­pect­ed to be­gin in Feb­ru­ary and end in nine months.Ten­ders have not gone out for the de­vel­op­men­tal works.Haz­ar said what the LSA need­ed was prop­er con­tain­ment leg­is­la­tion to deal with un­scrupu­lous peo­ple.

"This could keep back the work. What we would have to do is look for an al­ter­na­tive so­lu­tion. This is the same sit­u­a­tion we have all over the coun­try; Peo­ple claim­ing land that is not theirs."The LSA was au­tho­rised un­der the State Land Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure Act num­ber 25 of 1998, to pre­vent and con­tain fur­ther squat­ting on state lands and to reg­u­larise el­i­gi­ble ex­ist­ing squat­ters.

A per­son who is el­i­gi­ble for reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion must have oc­cu­pied a dwelling house on the prop­er­ty pri­or to Jan­u­ary 1, 1998 and ap­plied for a Cer­tifi­cate of Com­fort be­fore 2000.

Farm­ers un­sure­of their liveli­hood

By Jan­u­ary farm­ers oc­cu­py­ing agri­cul­tur­al lands at Kan­galee would have to va­cate their plots to make way for the by­pass.Farmer An­tho­ny Dean said while he was will­ing to sur­ren­der his two-acre par­cel, the Gov­ern­ment has not giv­en a com­mit­ment to pro­vide him with an­oth­er piece of land to plant his crops.Dean was on­ly giv­en a $150,000 grant to build a new home in the com­mu­ni­ty. He would have to re­pay the T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance for the grant.

Dean said he was un­sure of his fu­ture and felt help­less."I don't know what will be my po­si­tion next year. Tech­ni­cal­ly, I am out of a job."Steven­son Alexan­der, a mem­ber of the Kan­galee Street Ex­ten­sion Com­mit­tee, said the farm­ers' lives are now in lim­bo.Farmer Damien Baksh said three months ago, $50,000 of his crops were de­stroyed. He is yet to be com­pen­sat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the com­mit­tee, Dar­ryl James said he in­tends to raise sev­er­al is­sues in the next meet­ing, among them:

�2 Ar­eas al­lo­cat­ed to af­fect­ed res­i­dents are oc­cu­pied or un­der cul­ti­va­tion.

�2 Plots un­der cul­ti­va­tion have been deemed va­cant on LSA's map.

�2 What was dis­trib­uted as com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages to af­fect­ed res­i­dents were in fact LSA's Land for the Land­less forms.

KP Land res­i­dent Wen­dell "Bigs" Su­perville said he was not in sup­port of re­pay­ing the $145,000 hous­ing grant."That can't do noth­ing for me. I know noth­ing comes free, but I find they should give me a HDC house in­stead. It is a lot of run­ning around I would be faced with. Our next step is to get HDC hous­es. We ain't re­al­ly want this land thing, be­cause it not mak­ing sense."

Busi­ness­es: By­pass­will not af­fect our sales

How­ev­er, on Wednes­day the ma­jor­i­ty of busi­ness­es along the bustling Va­len­cia Junc­tion, did not see the by­pass af­fect­ing or ham­per­ing their sales.These busi­ness­es in­clude The Rumshop, The Cor­ner Shop and The Orig­i­nal BBQ pig­tail. They felt the by­pass was a step in the right di­rec­tion."It will re­lieve a lot of stress and traf­fic, that is for sure," said busi­ness­man An­tho­ny Marc­hand.