Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 16: Kranti Dal (KD) today urged the Minister for Forests, Ecology and Environment, Choudhary Lal Singh to speed up the anti-encroachment drive and retrieve the encroached forest land throughout the State.
The demand was made by the Kranti Dal president, Pritam Sharma at a press conference here today. Pritam Sharma hit out at land grabbers for encroaching Government and forest land in the State under the influence of some big fishes resulting in stalling of all vital projects being undertaken by the Government in Jammu region for promoting tourism sector.
“All the Government projects particularly AIIMS, Artificial Lake in Tawi, gondola projects etc have been delayed to the encroachment of land by a particular community who staged protest in front of the residence of Forest Minister Ch Lal Singh,” Pritam Sharma alleged.
Expressing confidence on the initiative taken by Ch Lal Singh for the development of Jammu region, Pritam Sharma said that Ch Lal Singh is making all out efforts for protecting and conserving forests to maintain the fragile ecosystem of the State. He said the Forest Ministry is making history by carrying out massive plantation drive plating crores of saplings in the State for providing healthy environment to the people.
He also expressed his satisfaction over the steps taken by Ch Lal Singh for fencing of nurseries to avoid encroachments and smuggling of timber.
He asked Forest Minister to deal all the land grabbers of any community without any caste and creed with an iron hand.
He appealed to the Government to provide suitable accommodation to those nomads who are legal land owners.
He also appealed to general public to cooperate with the Forest Minister who has taken the welfare initiatives so that he will take more actions against land mafia.
He said over 14,000 hectares land is under encroachment under J&K out of which about 2,800 hectares of land was retrieved from encroachers by Choudhary Lal Singh in his tenure as Forest Minister till date, he added.
Others present in the press conference were Raj Roop Singh, Vijay Kumar, Tarun Kumar, Anil Sharma, Bhagwan Sharma and Neeraj Dhamin etc.
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