State to formulate Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act

With a view to rein in large scale land grabbing in urban areas of the state, the Orissa government is planning to come out with a new law called 'Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act' modeled on similar legislations framed by the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

"The draft of the Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill which is being prepared jointly by the departments of revenue and law will be readied within seven days and thereafter sent to the Cabinet for approval. This Bill is likely to be introduced in the winter session of the state assembly”, said S N Patra, minister for revenue and disaster management.

Under the proposed law, encroachment of government land will be treated as a cognizable offence.

The encroachers would be evicted and a penalty equivalent to five times the market price of the land will be imposed on the encroachers.

Besides, the state government is also set to come out with amendments in the existing 'Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment Act, 1972' to deal stringently with the encroachers in the rural areas.

"Under this Act, there is a provision for punishment against the encroachers but the punishment is not serious. Under the Vasundhara scheme of the state government, the homeless are provided land in the range of 4-10 decimal. The cases of homeless people who have encroached land up to 10 decimal of land will be settled while those have acquired over 10 decimal of government land will be evicted. The eviction will be done suo moto by the tahasildar”, added Patra.

If people with homes are found to have encroached government land, they will be evicted and penalty will be imposed on them.

The quantum of penalty will be decided by the tahasildar and those who do not comply will face civil imprisonment.

It may be noted that over one lakh cases of land encroachment are currently pending in the state.