*Panel of 4 Admn Secys fails to show any seriousness
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 25: The much-needed commercial exploitation of available vacant evacuee property to prevent its encroachment and generate revenue for the Custodian Department has remained confined to the official statements of the PDP-BJP Coalition Government with nothing tangible on the ground. Moreover, the retrieval of the illegally occupied land and structures is going on at a snail’s pace despite the fact that the present speed will take not less than 10 decades to complete this vital task.
According to the information available with EXCELSIOR, Minister for Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation Syed Basharat Bukhari while chairing a meeting on April 28 this year had decided to constitute a committee of experts to suggest measures for putting the idle evacuee properties to commercial use to increase the revenue of the Custodian Department and to prevent its encroachment.
It was further decided that the committee would comprise of experts from horticulture, business management and marketing fields to recommend measures for productive utilization of properties especially horticulture land, official sources said.
However, no formal order was issued for formulation of committee for more than one month despite the fact that requirement of keeping Administrative Secretaries of key departments as its members was conveyed by the Custodian Department to the General Administration Department soon after the decision taken in April 28 meeting, sources said.
This prompted the Minister for Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation to reiterate necessity of formulating a committee to suggest development of productive assets in a meeting held on June 6, 2016. He even stressed the need of exploring the possibility of creating state-of-the-art public facilities on the custodian land wherever available in the State, sources further said.
However, again no seriousness was shown by the General Administration Department and the formulation of committee was delayed till September when Government finally issued Order No.969-GAD dated September 6, 2016 whereby sanction was accorded to the constitution of a committee headed by Financial Commissioner, Planning, Development and Monitoring Department.
The committee comprising of Administrative Secretaries of Public Works, Housing and Urban Development and Revenue Departments and Custodian General J&K was asked to advise the Government about the optimum utilization of the assets (land and buildings) of the Evacuee Property Department; development of valuable units/projects on the vacant land/sites and financial viability of the projects so proposed.
In order to ensure that committee comes up with concrete suggestions, it was allowed to co-opt Director, Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), retired Director Horticulture, who is also member of J&K Wakaf Board and a practicing entrepreneur in agriculture sector.
Astonishingly, the Financial Commissioner Planning, Development and Monitoring Department has failed to convene even one meeting of the committee till date despite the fact that issue has been raised in several meetings by the Minister for Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation since April this year, sources informed, adding “in this way the concern of the Government about evolving innovative measures for optimum use of Custodian assets in the State so as to make it a self-reliant has remained confined to the official documents”.
“This indicates that the Ministers and the bureaucrats are not on the same page and what is being proposed by the Ministers is not being taken seriously by the senior officers”, sources regretted, adding “even Minister for Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation should not feel content by flagging the issue in the official statements and he should have issued directions for early convening of the meeting of the multi-department committee so that clear picture could have emerged about utilization of assets of the Custodian Department”.
“Similarly, not much seriousness is being shown towards retrieval of huge chunk of evacuee property, which is under the unauthorized occupation”, sources said while disclosing that a total of 1,62,000 kanals of EP land has remained out of the hands of the Custodian Department during the past many years for want of extensive drive to retrieve the same.
Against this huge chunk of illegally occupied land, the Custodian Department has been able to retrieve only 1,000 kanals since the formulation of PDP-BJP Coalition Government early this year, sources said, adding “this clearly indicates that if the present pace is continued the Custodial Department would take not less than 10 decades to retrieve entire illegally occupied land”.
The snail’s pace retrieval of land is notwithstanding the fact that Minister for Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation several months back had asked for creation of Evacuee Property Task Force to look after and retrieve the encroached assets of Custodian Department in the State, sources said, adding “even there is no prompt follow-up of the court cases, which otherwise are creating impediments in retrieval of the land from the illegal occupants”.
When contacted, Custodian General, J&K, Javed Khan confirmed that no meeting of the multi-department committee on advising the EP Department about commercial exploitation of available vacant land has been convened till date. “Hopefully following opening of Darbar at Jammu the meeting would be convened as we are holding in-house discussions on infrastructure to be developed on the vacant land”, he added.
He also admitted that drive to retrieve illegally occupied land was required to be intensified. He, however, added that in several areas court cases are the major obstacles.
The Custodian General said that department has started the process of digitization and computerization of EP record and retrieval of land would be taken up aggressively in near future.
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