Encroachment of forest and khalsa meaning Government land or kahcharai or the land reserved grazing fields in J&K is not any new development. This is an old practice and since many years in the past cases of illegal encroachment of land have been processed and even FIRs lodged but to no effect. The point is that the encroachers are powerful people with strong political or administrative links and nobody wants to touch them. Among the big fish are even ex-Ministers, MLAs, business magnates and other influential persons.
Why is this large scale malaise of our State? Why the administration has been unable to retrieve the encroached land and how come new structures are raised on encroached land which is illegal. It speaks for inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the administration and the Governments concerned. A recent report of the Forest Department reveals that around 84,000 kanals of forest land is under illegal occupation of encroachers in the State for decades at end. The Government is only soft pedaling on the issue and speaks a lot for its non seriousness.
According to details available with us, in Kashmir Division, 4181.13 hectares (83620 Kanals) of forest land in various forest Divisions is under illegal occupation while as in Jammu Division, 249 kanals of forest land is under illegal occupation. Divisional Forest Officer Ganderbal has submitted the total forest area of Sindh Forest Division Ganderbal is 37901 hectares and out of which 475.82 hectares of forest land is at present in illegal occupation of 1752 encroachers and no forest land as per his statement has been allotted to any person. For want of space we cannot give the entire figure work about the total areas of forest land in each Forest Division and the area of the Division under illegal encroachment. What trickles down from these reports submitted by corresponding Divisional Forest Officers is that they seem to be helpless in doing anything towards the retrieval of the encroached land. The simple reason is political interference. Cases are not framed against powerful persons even if FIRs are also lodged. What is more is that the High Court of the State despite several orders of evicting the illegal occupation and encroachment has not been informed that the encroached lands have been retrieved. The Court orders are given scant respect and that makes the task of the Government more complicated. In some cases commercial establishments have been raised on illegally occupied lands. Encroachers are conducting strong commercial activities and nobody knows whether they even pay the land rent or not. What transpires is that there seems to be a nexus of sorts developed between revenue, police, tourism and other concerned departments of the administration? Eviction of the illegal occupants is not a difficult thing to enforce especially when the court order is also there. But unwillingness of the administration to do so is the main reason whey nothing is happening.
The Government had desired the Forest Conservation branch to give a census report of the trees in forests. But the same has not been possible. The officers say that there are such a large number of trees and there are hundreds of varieties that make it difficult to prepare a census repot of the trees. Again in regard to Wild Life sanctuaries, the general reports from Forest Officers are that these sanctuaries are maintained in accordance with the rules and the Act covering the wild life sanctuaries. We have many sanctuaries in all the three regions of the State and it is some comfort at least to know that these sanctuaries have been maintained.
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