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| Much hyped drive against jungle land mafia reaches nowhere | | 4,877.62 hectares of forest land under illegal encroachment in Kashmir division | | Javaid Naikoo
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Nov 25: The much hyped drive against Jungle land Mafia by PDP-BJP coalition has ended up with mere disappointment as around 4,877.62 hectares of the forest land is still under encroachment in Kashmir division alone.
As per a recent survey conducted by the department of forests around 4,877.62 hectares of forest land is still under illegal occupation of land mafias in various forest compartments across Kashmir.
The details reveal that District Anantnag is the leading when it comes to illegal encroachment of forest land in its various forest compartments with arround 1885 hectares. In nearby Shopian district there are still 773.32 hectares of forest land in possession of land Mafias in various compartments which include Sedow, Heerpora, Borihalan, Kathohalan, Keller and various other compartments on both sides of Mughal road.
Likewise in North Kashmir, the data reveals that thousands of hectares of once jungle land are now apple orchards and maize fields of influential people including Jehlum division,Rajwara and Handwara divisions.
Alleged reports of illegal encroachment of jungle land also pour in from central Kashmir's Ganderbal and Budgam Districts, where according to highly placed sources, the encroachers in nexus with concerned revenue officials had also got prepared documents to claim ownership rights on the forest land.
According to official accounts the total forest area of the state is 20230 square kms out of which 11151.57 hectares were diverted for non-forestry use in terms of J&K Forest Conservation Act up to December 31, 2012.
In past four years arround 18.30 lakh plants were planted under CAMPA forest scheme, while as 29.73 lakh plants and 14 lakh plants were planted up to December 2012 under the scheme for ensuring afforestation in the state.
Plantation operations are also being carried out by Social Forestry Department, State Forest Research Institute (SFRI) and Wild Life Protection Department (WLPD) which goes arround 7.58 lakh and 1.40 lakh plants planted during 2011-12 by these departments.
After assuming his charge as Minister for Forestry and Social environment, Bhali Bhagat amid much media hype claimed to have launched a massive drive against all those people who have occupied Jungle land illegally over the years in Rajouri and Poonch areas.
BJP Minister on many occasions said that Jungle land will also be recovered from encroachers in Kashmir division. However for some unknown reasons drive against encroachers was stopped immediately after the department of Forests served a notice to Taj-Mohi-ud-din in connection with his alleged forest land encroachment in Sedow area of south Kashmir's Shopian District.
A team was also designated including SSP vigilance organization Kashmir Altaf Hussain, DFO demarcation, zubair Ahmad, DFO Forest Department Shopian, Muhammad Ashraf Katoo and officials of Department of Revenue to start on ground survey of land in possession of Taj-Mohi-ud-din. Repeated attempts to talk to Bali Bhagat went in vain as he did not pick up the phone. |
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