Tuesday, 23 May 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
On a mission to remove all illegal encroachments from government land in Uttarakhand, the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has sought data of all the encroachers. The State administration has been directed to inform about the people of other States who have encroached on the land in the State and the number of people of Uttarakhand involved in the encroachments. The CM also directed all district magistrates to conduct physical inspection of the enemy properties in their districts and acquire all such properties. All the DMs will earmark the enemy properties in their districts. Dhami gave these orders while chairing a meeting on illegal encroachments in the secretariat on Monday. It was informed in the meeting that the forest department has freed 455 hectares of encroachments from its land. On a stern note, the CM said that action would be taken against the officers failing to prevent encroachment from the government land. He said that the responsibilities of the officers in this regard would be fixed. The CM emphasised that the government land must be freed from encroachments and all the districts should act fast in implementing all the government orders in this regard. Dhami directed the officers of the Home department that the verification drive of the outsiders should be undertaken continuously and verification of the tenants should be done. He stressed on interdepartmental coordination in the anti encroachment drive. Dhami also directed the DMs to ensure that the new plotting in their districts is as per the norms. He said that the divisional commissioners of Garhwal and Kumaon would continuously monitor the anti- encroachment drive in their areas and hold regular meetings with the DMs in this regard. He directed that the verification of the outsiders working in the Char Dham Yatra and other religious spots should be done. The CM asked the DMs to ensure that there are no encroachments on the land of village Panchayats. He added that the DMs should also ensure that no fake document of any person is made and take strict action on the complaints in this regard. Dhami directed the DMs to cross verify the reports given by different departments on action on illegal encroachments and take action on those providing wrong information. He suggested that possibilities of setting up public projects in the enemy properties should be explored.
The CM said that every government land would have a unique number and all the departments would maintain a register of their land. There would be a digital inventory of the land and satellite pictures of the government lands would be taken from time to time. The CM said that a district level committee headed by DM has been constituted to remove the encroachments and to provide technical assistance to the district committees, a special cell has been set up in the revenue board.
The meeting was attended by chief secretary S S Sandhu, additional chief secretaries Radha Raturi, Anand Bardhan, secretaries R Meenakshi Sundaram, Pankaj Kumar Pandey, HC Semwal, Vinay Shankar Pandey, Head of Forest Force (HoFF) Anup Mallik, additional director general of police V Murugeshan, AP Anshuman and other senior officers of the administration. The Garhwal commissioner Sushil Kumar, Kumaon commissioner Deepak Rawat and all the DMs attended the meeting virtually.
