S Tahir-ul Haq
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Nov 8: In Jammu and Kashmir, thousands of acres of state land are under illegal occupation, even as Revenue officers appear to be helpless in retrieving the land from the occupants.
2The occupied land includes khascharie, and at some places senior government functionaries have purchased the land for construction of new buildings. The khascharie was meant for cattle grazing, but in various villages general public has illegally encroached the land while the government has purchased the same type of land in the same area for building purposes, said sources. Sources said that at many places from south to north Kashmir, colleges, schools, hospitals and other government offices were sanctioned by the government, but irony is that the department concerned has failed to evacuate the khaschari land from the common masses.
At certain places, the role of police becomes questionable, as why they remain mute spectators. A top Revenue official while talking to Early Times said that the department concerned is lacking manpower, machinery, and above all there is no support from the government. "A Pathwari cannot demolish the structures.
Also, fact of the matter is that there is always political intervention and we don't get proper support from different quarters," the official said.
He said that whenever any official wants to take action against the encroachers/ illegal occupants of the state land or khascharie, there remains no guarantee of tenure of the concerned Revenue officer/officials.
Sources further said that in every department there exists the so-called transfer industry which gets a officer transferred from his post if he creates any problem for others as this industry has access to political and other power corridors.
"The Governor administration should understand that there is a huge loss to the state exchequer if the state land and khascharie was not evacuated from the illegal occupants in every nook and corner of the state," said sources.
"There are thousands of kanals of khascharie that can be saved from land grabbers so that construction of new sanctioned buildings could be made on them," sources added. |
