It has been a rather long wait for promised land for this hero of Kargil -- retired Subedar Major of the Indian Army, Lalji Rohit. He withstood a hail of bullets as he fired back at infiltrators in the Poonch sector of Jammu & Kashmir. Way back in 1993 when he was posted in Poonch, Rohit had applied for land to the Gujarat government.
With Indian Army he might have emerged victorious in Kargil but Rohit has failed to get his due in his home in Gujarat.
Rohit was born to a poor family in a small village of Moholel in the Kheda district and joined the Indian Army in 1980 at the age of 19. He completed 28 years of service in 2008. "I had first applied to the Gujarat government for land in 1993," Rohit said. "But I was later told by the government that my application had been misplaced. In 1997, I appealed to the mamlatdar of Nadiad but I was told that the land was marked as Gauchar." However in 1999, the same piece of land was given to another soldier. "When I reapplied in 2007, the sub-divisional magistrate of Kheda told me to wait for a notification of land allocation," Rohit said. "In 2008, when I submitted one more application, the SDM transferred the application to the mamlatdar, Nadiad."
After his retirement and 20 years of long wait he visited the Kheda collector in January 2013. The collector promised to give him the land. "The state government has issued a notification on March 27, 2001, which says that a maximum of 16 acre land can be allocated to retired Army personnel," said Rohit.
Rohit however still harbours hope. He said, "I have sent a complaint to National Commission for Scheduled Castes and a legal notice to the state government and district collector of Kheda in this regard." In his application, Rohit has alleged that the land reserved near his village for only retired Army personnel is not being allocated to him. Additional district magistrate of Kheda, S K Langa told TOI, "Regarding the case of Lalji Rohit, I don't have any information."
via The Times of India ,
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