Sir,
This has reference to the editorial ‘Encroachment of forest lands’ (DE, Apr 17, 2017).Our state has, undoubtedly been endowed with huge forest resource.Forests occupy a significant percentage of the total geographical area of our state.These forests have a large number of trees of various types which are used both for commercial and private purposes and many industries based on ecotourism, resin and turpentine, willow etc.in our state depend on the forests.Besides, many people visit forests for sightseeing, to study biodiversity and enjoy nature at its best.Thus, forests play an important role in the economy of our state.But it is shocking that a whopping 84000 kanals of forest land in various forest divisions is under illegal occupation of encroachers in our state.Forest land is valuable land and the encroachment of this land is an illegal act which needs to be taken cognizance of by the Forest Department and law enforcement agencies.
How come that some people dare encroach this land and even built structures on it.After all, this land could not be encroached overnight and huge structures were not raised in a day or two.Action needs to be taken against all the encroachers, however influential they might be, and effective steps need to be taken to retrieve this land and ensure that no forest or other Government land is encroached in future.
The fact that some encroachers have raised commercial establishments on the illegally occupied land and are conducting strong commercial activities, speaks volume about the inactivity and irresponsibilty of the officers of the concerned departments.As the Forest department has succeeded in retrieving vast chunks of land in different forest divisions of the state in recent past ,it is hoped the remaining encroached land will also be retrieved with the coordination of different departments.The need of the hour is to realize the gravity of the matter and take immediate steps on the court directions to evict the encroachers from the illegally occupied land and thus, send a strong message that the Government is not going to have soft corner for the encroachers any longer so that nobody should dare to encroach the Government land in future.
Yours etc…
Ashok Sharma,
Udhampur
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