Govt reclaims encroached panchayat land in Sangrur village

Sangrur, December 12

In its endeavour to free panchayat land from encroachments, the Rural Development and Panchayats Department managed to reclaim over 24 acres of its land. Panchayats Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar led the operation to reclaim over 24 acres of Panchayat land which was under encroachment at Sangrur’s Nawangaon village.

In the first phase last year, around 9,000 acres of land was repossessed by the department. Last year, the department identified 30,133 acres of cultivable land under illegal possession. As per records, there are 16 chunks of land, (each over 100 acres) in the districts of Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, SAS Nagar, Rupnagar, two each in Patiala, Kapurthala and Gurdaspur and three each in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur.

Speaking at Nawangaon, Bhullar said under this campaign, over 12,000 acres of land under illegal possession has been freed and handed over to panchayats. “From now onwards, the annual contract of tilling this land will be given through open bidding process. Steps are being taken in the direction of enhancing revenue by handing over these lands to Gram Panchayat,” he said.

Officials in the department revealed that the as per records, the government owns 1,40,441 acres more village common (panchayat) land, the value of which runs into thousands of crores.