Land Grab Debate
News Kashmir Analysis
The issues and debate around the Government action on Land grabbers in Jammu and Kashmir are heating up. For the past three decades, Land Grabbing has been an issue of major concern. Now the ongoing Government action has started a debate.
It is worth pointing out that
The L-G administration passed directions to all deputy commissioners to evict illegal occupiers from the State land in J&K by January 31 this year.
As a matter of fact, J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Thursday said only influential and powerful people who misused their position to encroach upon the State land would be evicted in the Union Territory (UT).
“The High Court has passed directions repeatedly to evict illegal encroachers from State land. Let me clarify that influential people who have misused their position, violated rules and grabbed land will be evicted. The common man and poor man will not be touched. We will ensure their rights are secured,” L-G Sinha said in Srinagar.
“The drive will continue and no one will be spared and all the illegal encroachments on the State as well as ‘kahcharai land’ will be removed”ShyambirDeputy Commissioner Ganderbal stated.
According to official figures released on Thursday, around 1,600 kanals (200 acres) of government land was recovered in a single day during anti-encroachment drives in Bandipora.
With these 1,571 kanals, the total retrieved land has increased to around 28,000 Kanals (3,499 acres), which have been retrieved from the land grabbers.
The official pulse is that
most of these encroachments had taken place on the posh outskirts of the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar—in Bahu tehsil (Sidhra, Bhathandi, Sunjwan) in Jammu and Humhama and Rangret areas of Srinagar—in the last several decades. Cost of land in these areas ranges between Rs 2.00 crore and Rs 4 crore.
Consequent of the UT Government’s recent decision of retrieving all these lands, Commissioner-Secretary Revenue, Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, has directed all the 20 DCs, vide Circular No: 02-JK(Rev) of 2023 dated 09-01-2023, to remove all the identified encroachments and achieve “100% target” by 31st January 2023. He has asked the DCs to submit daily progress of the retrieval of State land and Kahcharai land, as per a format, through respective Divisional Commissioners every evening.
Despite protest from some political parties Jammu and Kashmir Government is going ahead with retrieving of land grabbed and so far thousands of Kanals have been received back.
One hopes all the land grabbed illegally would be retrieved back.
