Forest land given away to set up factories; govt to rectify

Some industrialists were sanctioned forest land to set up their business in Madhya Pradesh owing to lack of coordination between the forest and revenue departments, the state government said here today.
"Some anomalies had surfaced in sanctioning lands to Industries department for setting up industries and we are correcting it. This has happened due to lack of coordination between forest department and revenue department officials," State Revenue Minister Rampal Singh told reporters here.
To mitigate the problem of industrialists who had been given forest land, he said that panels of revenue and forest officials have been constituted at different levels.

"Now proper coordination has been established between the two departments to do away with the confusion over the ownership of tracts of lands. The panels will settle disputes arising out of the transfer of forest lands," he said.
He said that around 6,730 acres of land had been transferred to Industries department to clear way for setting up industries.
Singh said there was a shortage of field staffers in the department adding that efforts were on to fill the vacant vacancies.

He said that modern machines have been pressed its service to measure land accurately and the machines have been stationed in every tehsils of the districts across the state.

The minister said that 750 patwaris and revenue inspectors have been trained to run these machines.
Besides, Survey of India has trained 54 revenue staffers to use these machines, he added.