We have been repeatedly taking up the near disaster fate of so many water bodies in Jammu region. Total negligence and lack of responsibility on the part of Government functionaries has brought these water bodies to the brink of extinction. Apart from pollution and environmental degradation that have seized these bodies, human callousness has worked recklessly and much of the land of these water bodies has been encroached upon obviously with the connivance of revenue functionaries or forest functionaries. A recent example of callousness of authorities is to be found in the case of a pond situated along Janipur-Roop Nagar road near Azad Hind Filling Station. In response to the RTI application, the concerned functionaries of the Revenue Department informed the complainant that the pond has a land measuring 10 kanals and 13 marlas and the same has been encroached. It did not disclose how much of land was encroached upon and by whom or what steps the Government had taken to vacate the illegal occupation of the encroached land. The applicant has submitted applications to the SDM, to Municipal Corporation and to the Forest Department to examine the case and order eviction of illegal occupation of the land there. Nobody cared to write a word in reply as if they were not at all part of the Government machinery. It speaks of utter lack of responsibility and incompetence of the officers approached by the applicant.
Having lost hope with all the applicant had approached, he approached the State Accountability Commission and invoked the clauses of the Act to move the Government on the issue.
The SAC in pursuance of the provisions of the Act has directed the Revenue and Municipal Corporation to submit a report on the status of the pond and explain what action they have taken so far to retrieve the encroached land. Unfortunately part of the problem is that Government functionaries of various departments are accomplices in these irregularities but the authorities take no cognizance of that. The Municipal Corporation wants to hide behind the pretext that eviction is a law and order questions. Why cannot the Corporation ask the police for support to evict the offenders? These are pretext and perhaps a big mafia is involved in it. It is reported that at least fifty per cent of the land attached to the pond has been grabbed illegally and no action has been taken so far.
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