Identify, remove encroachments from govt land, Guv tells officials

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 21

While having a first-hand assessment of the scale and nature of land encroachments in the state, Governor NN Vohra on Saturday directed all district collectors to immediately carry out a comprehensive mapping of all encroachments.

At a review meeting in the civil secretariat, the Governor directed officials to get the comprehensive mapping relating to state, forest and panchayat lands, the Dal, Wular, Nageen lakes and other water bodies, highways and public roads in their respective jurisdictions and forward them through the Divisional Commissioners of Kashmir and Jammu by July 31. He directed the district collectors to make full use of available technologies such as geotagging and satellite mapping to prepare a fully verified database by the given date.

Consequent to the presentation made by KB Agarwal, Financial Commissioner, Housing and Urban Development Department, the Governor expressed serious concern over the encroachment of more than 18 lakh kanals of government, panchayat and forest lands in the state, in gross violation of the revenue, forest and municipal laws.

The Governor directed the Chief Secretary to ensure that the instructions earlier issued by the Revenue Department, pursuant to the Supreme Court orders in the ‘Jagpal Singh vs State of Punjab and Others’ case should be suitably revised to clearly lay down the roles and responsibilities of the district and divisional administration regarding encroachments on government land and directed everyone to effectively enforce the law to remove the existing encroachments on a time-bound basis and ensure against more encroachments.

Khurshid Ganai, Adviser to the Governor, suggested that a special court or tribunal be constituted to hear all cases pertaining to encroachments so that evictions in such cases were not delayed by the parties seeking stay of proceedings from various courts.

Directions issued…

• The Governor directed that both Divisional Commissioners, after they receive base data reports from their district collectors, prepare by August 15 lists of major encroachments, especially on national highways, major roads, public places, commercial hubs, etc, and initiate time-bound action for the removal of encroachments
• The Governor directed the Divisional Commissioners to ensure that the Deputy Commissioners enforced (i) the Ribbon Development Act and other legal provisions to strictly ensure against encroachments, particularly along both sides of the national highway from Lakhanpur onwards; (ii) urgently reviewed issues relating to enlargement of Abadi Deh for meeting the genuine housing requirements of the people living in the villages
• The Governor told the Chief Secretary to review the status of digitisation of land records in the state, which stands inordinately delayed. The Governor observed that he shall take a further meeting to review the results achieved, around August 20