Rattan Singh Gill
‘Top land grabbers who illegally encroached the state land by misusing their positions will be among our first targets of Administration's operation which will be resumed after the Centre okays the policy on the Anti-encroachment drive in Jammu Kashmir', the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha said in an interview with LallanTop Video Channel at Srinagar last week. The poor and those who have encroached small measure of state land will be spared who are likely to be covered under the proposed policy under scrutiny by the Ministry of Home, Sinha said.
I asked for furnishing twenty-five top encroachers in each district and once we got it we had not discriminated among the illegal encroachers and the administration had done its job. We have retrieved six lakh kanals of state land which would be put in proper use for schools, colleges, hospitals, industry and even for graveyards in case of need.
On halting of the drive, Sinha said, ‘During the drive, we realised later that we needed to have done more homework as our targets were top violators thus we are now verifying and updating the revenue records and data and preparing for our calendar about the pending land grabbers who were supposed to be reached and action would be taken against them.
Responding to a pointed query whether the palatial mansion of the former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah at Jammu will be covered in the next land retrieval operation, Sinha said, ‘The nation will come to know when we will resume the operation and it need not be disclosed right now.'
The drive sparked protests in the UT and was criticised by political parties. J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and his administration have stated on several occasions that the drive was not aimed at poor people who built a house or a shop, but rather at the powerful and wealthy.
Indications are there that after a hiatus in February this year, the J&K Administration has been in preparation mode to resume the halted anti-encroachment drive to clear the pending high-profile cases of illegal encroachments in Jammu and Kashmir after the Center's approval.
According to officials, 75,000 to 87,500 acres of government land are still under the control of influential individuals. Residential, commercial, agricultural, and other state land are all included.
Following widespread criticism from the public and opposition parties, the Jammu Kashmir administration has approached the Centre with a new policy to reclaim encroached government land across the Union Territory (UT).
Political observers felt that the drive would have got tremendous public support, but it was the basic flaw or irregular order in the demolition drive in contravention to the declared statement of the Lieutenant Governor to spare the poor and target the big fish first.
While the administration was unequivocally claiming of hitting the powerful but except of a few names, it did not disclose the names of those powerful persons from whom the state land was retrieved. That raised a question on the credibility of the official stance as the district administration never mentioned in their official press notes the names of those stripped of their illegal occupation.
Taking benefit out of this lapse, the vested interest prompted and provoked the common man to oppose the anti-encroachment drive.
The month-long anti-encroachment drive to retrieve government land was reportedly halted following an intervention by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), as the J&K administration was asked to issue notices and give residents proper hearing before arriving with bulldozers.
According to sources, poor people who have built one or two-room small houses or small shops and kiosks on government land will be exempted from the anti-encroachment drive. The MHA is likely to approve the Policy, after which the UT government will release it, and all anti-encroachment operations will be conducted strictly in accordance with the Policy document, which will then be in the public domain.
While encroachment is prevalent in Jammu and Srinagar, hundreds of acres of government land have been occupied in other districts as well. The new drive to reclaim encroached land will begin once the policy is announced by the UT government and approved by the MHA, according to sources.
The previous drive began on January 9, when the government issued a circular instructing all deputy commissioners to recover state land from encroachers. There was an “unspoken policy” of not touching the property of the poor and marginalised, and action would be taken against influential individuals who abused their positions and grabbed land.
According to sources, the MHA will decide the limit of the ceiling for the land that must be exempted from the purview of the anti-encroachment drive in consultation with the J&K government before the Policy is approved.
During the previous drive, land worth hundreds of crores was retrieved from many influential people, including former ministers.
