Land task force acts, govt begins recovery

Land task force acts, govt begins recovery
Deccan Herald

Most of the land encroached upon was land retained by the government to serve public interest, say, to build a park or a CA site, Mr Prakash said.

The government’s task force on land encroachment has identified nearly 1,664.8 acres of government land in and around Bangalore where over 24,042 unauthorised buildings exist. If regularised, these would bring in an estimated revenue of Rs 27.84 crore in penalties to the State Exchequer.

Briefing reporters on Thursday, Revenue Minister M P Prakash said that the process to recover or regularise unauthorised constructions was on.

“The deputy commissioners of Bangalore Urban and Rural have been asked to initiate a time-bound action-plan and recover encroached property. Officials can either retain the property for the government to use at a later stage or auction it. Of course, in some instances of illegal conversion of land, we have allowed them to regularise the property to those who currently occupy it with requisite penalties,” he said.

Most of the land encroached upon was land retained by the government to serve public interest — for instance, to build a park or a civic amenities’ site. “If there’s a park, someone would set up a Hopcoms stall there and someone else would start a milk booth there, saying these too served ‘public interest.’ After a few years, slowly other parts of the land gets gobbled up. This has been the usual modus operandi,” Mr Prakash said.

He said the government had earned about Rs 15 crore from the two acres recovered in Sarakki, while another Rs 19.8 crore was earned from auctioning the seven acres recovered in Vibuthipura near HAL. “Recovery is going on in a systematic manner. The DCs have been asked to report periodically on the progress to the task force,” he said.