In the light of plans to install power transmission lines, government has restated its intent to reclaim the Lamaha Railway embankment land reserve which has been occupied by squatters for decades.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, updating members on the developments at Guyana Power and Light (GPL) last Wednesday at a Parliamentary Sectoral Committee meeting, said that when the 20-megawatt station is built at Kingston, transmission lines would have to be installed at the former train line area parallel to Lamaha Street.
The station should become operational by May next year, Hinds said, and will assist in meeting the company’s need for additional power for increased demands. It is not clear whether residents have been informed of the government’s plans. Up to last year, there were no immediate arrangements to remove them in the absence of an official policy on that issue, Housing and Water Minister Harry Narine Nawbatt had told this newspaper then.
Nawbatt had however urged against a perception among those residents that they could remain there indefinitely.
Some of the persons squatting on the Lamaha Canal embankment in Sophia have been relocated and some of them were given house lots in Sophia.
