ET Report
JAMMU, Sept 19: Over 30 kanals (18,150 Square Yards) of land worth crores of rupees, belonging to State Industrial Development Corporation (SIDCO), has been encroached by some locals including a few influential people of Samba who enjoy political patronage.
Despite claims by the Government that they have taken strict measures against the land encroachers in the state; the encroachers have expanded their nefarious operations towards industrial area as well.
According to the sources, locals of the adjoining area of SIDCO complex Samba have encroached 15-20 plots of Industrial area. The owners of the plots were not allowed to start their ventures in the plots allotted to them by SIDCO.
"Encroachment has taken place in a planned manner and due to criminal record and political influence of the encroachers SIDCO has preferred to shut its eyes and failed to provide possession to the actual owners of the land," Sources said.
"Several structures have been made in illegal manner, but neither the revenue department nor the SIDCO dares to take action against them," they added.
Officials of SIDCO Industrial Growth Center, Samba said, "There were some cases of encroachment in phase-1, we have shifted that firms to Phase-2 and requested the revenue department and local police to provide us possession of these plots, as it belongs to industrial area."
There are two phases of industrial area Samba comprising 350 in 3494 kanals of land. SIDCO has allotted all the plots to various firms and now it is planning to start Phase third of the complex, but more than 150 plots are still unused in both phases of SIDCO complex Samba.
"Firms have hundreds of excuses to hold their projects, some owners get ill, somebody has some raw material problem and many of the units are locked by banks, revenue or excise department," said officials. |
