Only 1430 kanals land being evicted every month in entire UT
Slackness prevailing despite directive of speedy drive from DB
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 13: Forest Department will take many decades to retrieve 3.5 lakh kanals of land encroached in the length and breadth of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir keeping in view the snail’s pace drive being conducted ever since the issuance of explicit directives by the Division Bench of the High Court.
In the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) titled Save Animals Value Environment (SAVE) Versus J&K and Others, the Forest Department, on the repeated directions of the High Court, had filed a comprehensive report in the month of September last year mentioning that over 64,000 persons have encroached around 3.5 lakh kanals of forest land in the entire Union Territory.
Thereafter, the Forest Department, on the directions of the High Court, even furnished the list of 50 largest encroachers in terms of size of encroached land and submitted that action for eviction of the encroachers under the provisions of Indian Forest Act, 1927 has been initiated.
Accordingly, the Division Bench of the High Court headed by the then Chief Justice Gita Mittal had sought action plan from the Government for retrieval of such a huge chunk of land from the encroachers, which includes several influential persons.
In the month of March this year, High Court laid stress on removal of encroachments on rapid pace and initiation of appropriate action against the encroachers irrespective of their influence or position. However, the retrieval of land is going on at a snail’s pace and the present average retrieval per month clearly establishes that Forest Department will take many decades to complete the task in respect of entire 3.5 lakh kanals of encroached forest land.
This can be gauged from the figures submitted by the Forest Department to the High Court few days back in compliance to the previous directions issued in the PIL. “With effect from June 11, 2021 to August 10, 2021, 4041.8 kanals of forest land has been retrieved from the encroachers in the entire Union Territory. Similarly, from August 11, 2021 to September 30, 2021, 1782.7 kanals of forest land has been retrieved”, read the document submitted to the High Court and the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR.
The document further said that in the month of October 2021, 1334.646 kanals of forest land have been retrieved from the encroachers out of which 1129.646 kanals has been retrieved in Jammu province and 205 kanals from Kashmir province respectively. All these figures clearly indicate that on an average 1440 kanals of forest land is being retrieved every month in the entire Union Territory and keeping in view the present pace the Forest Department will take many decades to take back the entire 3.5 lakh kanals of land.
Despite snail’s pace retrieval exercise, the Forest Department has claimed in the document that eviction of forest land from the encroachers is the priority. It has further been mentioned that the process of eviction has been slowed down in the areas where the claimants have filed claims under the “The Scheduled Tributes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Reorganization of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. However, it has not been revealed as to how much chunk of land falls under these claims.
As per the comprehensive report submitted by the Forest Department, 6583 persons have encroached 1496 hectares of land in Anantnag Forest Division, 144 hectares by 604 persons in Awantipora, 157 hectares by 1062 persons in Bandipore, 189 hectares by 938 persons in Basohli, 253 hectares by 835 persons in Batote, 159 hectares by 959 persons in Bhaderwah, 237 hectares by 541 persons in Billawar, 232 hectares by 899 persons in Doda, 499 hectares by 704 persons in Jammu, 415 hectares by 1586 persons in Baramulla, 52 hectares by 104 persons in Kathua, 550 hectares in Kralpora, 39 hectares in Kishtwar, 355 hectares by 1399 persons in Kulgam, 595 hectares by 2632 persons in Langate, 368 hectares by 2496 persons in Lidder, 225 hectares by 103 persons in Mahore, 3 hectares by 15 persons in Marwah, 579 hectares by 1225 persons in Nowshera, 655 hectares by 3160 persons in Pir Panjal Forest Division, 1472 hectares by 29458 persons in Poonch, 197 hectares by 602 persons in Rajouri, 2106 hectares by 3370 persons in Ramban, 316 hectares by 335 persons in Ramnagar, 319 hectares by 651 persons in Reasi, 52 hectares by 11 persons in Samba, 1026 hectares by 3882 persons in Shopian, 463 hectares by 2312 persons in Sindh Forest Division, 16 hectares by 121 persons in Tangmarg and 9 hectares by 302 persons in Udhampur.
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