Abodh Sharma
Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 7: Despite existing provisions of law which prohibit use of agricultural land for non agricultural purposes, the greed and gluttony of the land mafia and the corrupt officers and officials of the state revenue department, agricultural land in the periphery of Jammu is fast being converted into residential colonies.
Sources divulged to ET that a criminal nexus between land mafia turned property dealers in connivance with the revenue officials were getting the land records forged to illegally sell agricultural land and turning farms into residential clusters.
Bishnah tehsil of Jammu district is one such area which despite being the paddy belt of the region has become victim of the deceit of the nexus. As per sources, for the last couple of years, many areas of Bishnah which constituted rice bowl of Jammu, particularly the Deoli village has been fast transformed into residential ghetto by a nexus between an infamous property dealer of the area and the revenue officials.
A social worker of the area told ET that twice he wrote to the Tehsildar Bishnah Rafiq Jaral, who recently got transferred to probe how agricultural land was being sold by land mafia in violation of norms, but he maintained mysterious silence, giving his mute approval to the plunder.
It deserves a mention that the nexus was thriving in the backdrop of weak laws. "The government enacted an act "The Jammu & Kashmir Prohibition on Conversion of Agricultural Land for Non- Agricultural Purposes Act 2011" (L.A. Bill No. 15 of 2011) to arrest the menace of conversion of agricultural land for non- agricultural purposes strictly in the State. The said Bill has been referred to the select committee, but with the dissolution of State Assembly, the said Bill having not been passed, got lapsed," divulged an officers of the Agriculture department.
As per agriculture department figures, JK has lost an estimated 10 lakh kanal agricultural land to non-agricultural purposes in the past 10 years primarily because of non-implementation the land conversion laws.
Official data further reveals that Jammu and Kashmir had 8.47 lakh hectare agriculture land in 2005-06 which has shrunk to 7.94 lakh hectare till 2015-16. This means, an estimated 53,000 hectare farmland has been converted to non-agricultural use.
According to the official record, the area under paddy cultivation was 158,000 hectare in 2012, shrinking to 141,000 hectare in 2015-16. |
