In respect of Gair Mumkin Khads, the UT Government had accorded sanction to the constitution of a three tier committee for delineation and demarcation of the land which do not form part of any water course or source but have been recorded as Gair Mumkin Khad, Gair Mumkin Darya, Gair Mumkin Nallah etc in the revenue records of Jammu and Kashmir. In common parlance, however, this term means a low lying area which acts as a buffer and as a passage for gushing rain waters or even flood waters of rivers, nallahs and streams. Incidentally, a rough estimate is that many of such lands have been encroached upon in the Jammu city and even residential houses built over them but there are other lands also where title chains are reported to be running for years but a farad for them or a revenue record was easily not furnished primarily due to the fact of erroneous entries and incomplete details about them in revenue records .
A lot of confusion, as such, in respect of such Khads having been noticed which even led to taking the matter to the High Court by a few aggrieved parties in respect of sale and purchase of land shown as Gair Mumkin Khads etc. The cases had been decided by the court in favour of such vendors and thus paving way for registration of such lands sold but to remove any type of confusion or ambiguity about such lands on a permanent basis, it is natural that once for all an exercise to be undertaken for proper lineation and demarcation was extremely important. In this exercise, the provisions of the Water Policy had also to be given effect to on the ground and in all, a time limit of three months had been given for completing the whole process. However, as on date, it is revealed that due to non serious approach on the part of the concerned authorities, only 20 per cent of the assigned work had been completed in respect of such delineation and demarcation exercise and that too covering Kathua and Samba districts only.
Less said the better about Jammu district where as much as three lakh Kanals of land has got to be surveyed , demarcated and delineated, only first phase of the process has been completed and that too within Jammu Municipal Corporation limits only. While the exercise, when completed fully, could safely be associated with yet another reform having been made in the working of the Revenue Department as a clarity of such lands would be finally established and records set right wherever required. However, it is not only that the concerned authorities only had to be referred to as having gone so slow on the assigned job but while on the one hand Administrative Council accorded approval for undertaking the delineation and demarcation process at the district levels, the Government on the other hand, have still not released the funds to the district authorities concerned so as to make payment to the outsourced agencies that had been or would be arranged to conducting of requisite surveys and to do digital mapping.
Interestingly, besides showing to what extent due and timely seriousness has not been accorded to the decision by the Government as a follow up measure that just for e-tendering process, Deputy Commissioners of Samba and Kathua have requested the higher authorities to sanction funds for this elementary prerequisites at the earliest and making payments subsequently to successful bidders for undertaking and completing DGPS/GIS surveys etc. The Deputy Commissioner of Jammu had already requested for releasing Rs. 4 crore required for the said survey. We do not rule out certain administrative issues cropping up but in order to settle the issue of identification and demarcation of Gair Mumkin Khads of all hues, these problems, if any still existing , must be resolved especially as regards availability of funds, so that even if the timeline of three months has elapsed, the job could be completed soon.
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