Complete geo-referencing, digitization of retrieved land: CS
Evicted land to be used by deptts for public purposes
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Feb 18: The Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has put on hold anti-encroachment drive till the consolidation of actions taken so far and has directed for geo-referencing and digitization of retrieved land at the earliest so that evicted land can be used by various departments for public purposes.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the outcome of the massive anti-encroachment drive launched across the Union Territory came up for discussion in a high-level meeting held few days back under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta and accordingly the Chief Secretary asked Secretary Revenue Department to furnish a status report on the agricultural, commercial, rural and urban State land retrieved during the anti-encroachment drive till date.
Emphasizing that anti-encroachment drive must be handled carefully, the Chief Secretary, as per the sources, directed that if any house has been demolished, the details of such demolitions should be compiled by the Divisional Commissioners and furnished to the office of the Chief Secretary.
“The Chief Secretary has further directed that geo-referencing and digitization of all retrieved land should be completed at the earliest and no further action shall be taken without consolidation of actions taken so far”, sources said, adding it has also been directed that the details of the land retrieved across the Union Territory should be uploaded on the portal for internal scrutiny. The Information Technology Department is already in the process of developing a separate portal/ dashboard in consultation with the Revenue Department so that specified details of all retrieved lands are recorded and put in public domain.
In order to safeguard the retrieved land, the departments were directed by the Chief Secretary to furnish proposal for their utilization. “The Revenue Department and the General Administration Department will monitor the allocation of the retrieved State land to various departments for public purposes”, sources said quoting the directions of Chief Secretary, adding “any department which intends to use the retrieved land for a specific purpose such as hospitals, playgrounds, bus-stands, parking spaces, schools, colleges, roads and industries etc can formulate Detailed Project Report (DPR) and intimate the proposal for funding during the financial year 2023-24”.
“The decision to put on hold the anti-encroachment drive till consolidation of actions taken so far doesn’t mean that left over big encroachers of the State land would be spared as the decision is just temporary and drive will resume particularly after notification of policy to protect small land holders”, sources said, adding “the Government has felt it imperative to consolidate actions taken so far and notify policy as continuing the drive without focusing on these two aspects would not augur well in longer run”.
The drive has yielded encouraging results as several thousands of kanals of State and Kahcharai land has been evicted particularly from the possession of influential persons in both the provinces of the Union Territory.
As already reported exclusively by EXCELSIOR, over 3.89 lakh kanals of encroached State and Kahcharai land has been retrieved from the encroachers mostly politicians, their relatives and retired bureaucrats across the Kashmir valley and 2.74 lakh kanals of land is yet to be taken back from the grabbers.
Similarly, the figures vis-à-vis retrieval of State and Kahcharai land across the Jammu region and remaining patches of land are also very high as such drive has been put on hold temporarily only. Majority of the encroachers were influential persons, who by misusing their power and connections had constructed different types of structures on the encroached land patches and Government doesn’t want them to keep on reaping the benefits of their illegal activities.
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