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| Politicians, babus occupy 12000 kanals of forest land | | | Muhammad Mukaram
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, May 30: At least 12,000 kanals of land is under the illegal occupation of politicians and bureaucrats enjoying top posts in the state administration, a top official in the administration revealed.
Surprisingly the land comprises of prime forest land of the state.
In 1947 the total forest area in J&K was 26,900 sq. kms which has now reduced to less than 18,000 sq kms.
"Around 12,000 kanals of forest land have been encroached by politicians, bureaucrats, officials of police and forest department and other people over the years," a senior forest official said. He said efforts are being made to evacuate from them within two years.
"We have identified some politicians, bureaucrats, forest and police officials who have encroached upon the forest land. The previous government had facilitated these encroachers in grabbing the forest land as they had been in nexus with each other. But there are also some ministers in this government who have facilitated the land grabbing," the official said.
He said some influential politicians were also land grabbers of the forest land and previous regimes had failed to act against them.
The Forest official said government had conveyed to them to vacate the forest land forthwith or "strict action" will be taken against them.
In the previous government, names of some politicians and bureaucrats also came to the fore who had grabbed the forest land but no action was taken against them. This government, name of a senior minister has come to the fore who has grabbed the state land illegally.
Various surveys have revealed that climate change and melting of glaciers was taking place due to shrinking of forests in the state.
The shrinking of forests is believed to be the main reason for increasing in man-animal conflict as cutting down of trees has ruined latter's habitat forcing them to go residential areas.
Sources said the authorities of the Forest department had directed the concerned officials to fix a time schedule for retrieving the entire chunk of land from the encroachers in their respective areas.
The official said the Forest department has set up the grievance cell where people can inform the department if any illegal encroachment takes place on the forest land |
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