The Jammu and Kashmir government plans to reclaim at least 1 lakh hectares of encroached state land and village commons by the end of this ...
The Jammu and Kashmir government plans to reclaim at least 1 lakh hectares of encroached state land and village commons by the end of this month. About 65% of this land falls in the Jammu division of the newly created Union Territory, revenue department officials told Scroll.in.
“Out of the total 20 lakh kanal [1 lakh hectares] or so, 14-15 lakh kanal [70,000 hectares-75,000 hectares] have been retrieved and illegal entries against this land in revenue records have been expunged,” said Pawan Kotwal, principal secretary, department of revenue. In other words, the people in possession of the land had been ordered to vacate it.
In Jammu and Kashmir, land is classed under three categories: private or individual property, state-owned land and village commons, which include grazing land. Over time, much of the state-owned land and village commons has been occupied by local residents, although very little of it was used for habitation.
“If someone encroached on state land, it was not unknown to revenue officials,” said a senior official in the revenue department, speaking off the record. “In fact, it was a revenue official like the patwari [village registrar] who would mark the encroachment on state land as an ‘illegal possession’ in the...
