Mufti govt cracks down on forest land grabbers in Jammu

Under fire for failure to stop massive grabbing of thousands of acres of forest land in the lower Shivalik range here, Jammu and Kashmir government has set up a demarcation committee for cracking down on the "heavyweight encroachers".
As per the forest department, 14,345 hectares of forest land had been encroached upon with 9,463.39 hectares in Jammu and 4877.62 hectares in Kashmir.
"We are going on offensive against the encroachers of forest lands in a big way. We will start from top and heavy weight land grabbers in Jammu. We will not spare anyone", State Forest Minister Bali Bhagat told PTI here today.

The Forest Minister assured that a committee has been set up and demarcation process is going on.
"I have instructed them to start from heavy weight and influential people," he said.
There have been reports of massive encroachment of forest land by influential people in Sunjwan, Bathindi, Raika and Sidhra areas in Jammu district during the last two decades and huge forest lands were grabbed and sold by the politically influential to those wanting to set up colonies.

A five member panel headed by the Chief Conservator of Forests, Jammu would deal with the encroachment and eviction of forest lands in Sunjwan, Bathindi, Raika and Sidhra areas in Jammu.

"Sanction is hereby accorded to the constitution of following Committee headed by the Chief Conservator of Forests, (S&D), J&K, Jammu to conduct the demarcation of the identified disputed locations in the context of J&K Forest (Conservation) Act 1997", Commissioner-Secretary to the Government, General Administration Department (GAD), M A Bukhari said in a government order.
The members of panel include Divisional Forest Officer; Regional Director, Survey & Land Records; Divisional Forest Officer, Demarcation; Director, Land Management and Jammu Development Authority.
Bukhari said that the panel would ascertain the status of land and delineation of forest land from others to avoid the encroachments on the forest land.

"It will get the demarcation conducted on the identified locations and finalize its report and recommendations within a period of two months", he said.
Expressing concern over the encroachments of forest lands, the Forest minister said, "Even the record of the these forest lands seems to have been destroyed. This is serious thing. This is deliberate and there might be involvement of political class.