Monday, April 9, 2018

Eviction Drive of Encroached Land by Govt. Squad is Farce in Bhubaneswar,


Drive for Eviction of Encroached Land by Govt. Squad   is Farce in Bhubaneswar, capital City of Odisha
Dear friends

Encroachment of precious   land by powerful people, Educational Institutions, MLAs, Ministers, private persons, business houses is very  common  phenomena  in Bhubaneswar. Thousands of acres of   Govt. land has been encroached by the people close to power circle for years together.  Achyut Samant of KIIT  has illegally  acquired  and through  fraudlent means  more than 100 acres of land  in  Patia  and Pathargadia  Mouza.  CAG Report  on  General and Social Sector   presented  to Govt.of Odisha  in 2014  has  exposed  how valuable land  has been encroached  by    Govt. officials, corporate  houses  in Bhubaneswar.  Being pretty aware about extent of encroachment of   huge land, the State Government has hardly  taken  steps  to recover  the land.  On the other hand,  the GA Dept.  under control of Nabin  Patnaik, Chief Minister, Odisha  since 18 years  is seen  silent spectator  to huge  quantity of land encroached  by  the powerful people   without taking any steps  against  them.

In 2015, RTI Application was  filed  to Department of General Administration, Govt. of Odisha  seeking  information about details  of land encroached , detected , evicted and recovered  in Bhubaneswar .     The information was  consciously denied   by the PIO. However, after order of Odisha Information Commission, the PIO dt.  12.2.18  and 22.3.18  has provided the  following  information.

1.       On 15.9.2014, a Central Enforcement Monitoring Committee ( CEMC)  has  been constituted  for eviction of encroachers. The said  committee  has been formed  under the chairmanship of  Vice-Chairman, Bhubaneswar Development Authority comprising  Commissioner of police, Bhubaneswar, Director of Estates, GA Dept.,  Commissioner, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation,  Secretary, Odisha State Housing Board as the members  for monitoring  the eviction of encroachments.
2.       Under the said committee, 6 Enforcement Squads have been constituted  out of which 5 Squads  are entrusted  to detect encroachments  within BMC area and the rest one  is entrusted  to detect encroachments beyond BMC area but within BDA area.  Besides  that,  an eviction Squad  consisting of representatives  from GA Department,  BDA, BMC , Commissioner of Police  and other user agencies  is entrusted  to evict the encroachers  from the Government land  as per the schedule of  eviction programme.
3.       GA Dept. has provided contradictory statistics about  extent of encroached land  and amount of land evicted.  On 12.2.18,  the PIO stated  that  Ac. 110 .000 of Govt. land  have been taken over  by GA Department  to its control  after eviction of  the encroachers. The total extent of Government land under General Administration Dept. is 21,511  acres out of which Ac. 478.314 of Govt. land  has been encroached  within BMC area.
4.    But on 22.3.18, the PIO  has provided the following statistics  about   total land  encroached  and evicted  by GA Dept.
Year
No. of demolition programme executed
Extent of Govt.land detected
Extent of Govt. land  free from encroachments
2014-15
128
Ac. 841.936
Ac. 32.645
2015-16
123
Ac. 322.707
Ac. 45.063
2016-17
103
Ac. 154.213
Ac. 56.646
Grand Total
354
Ac. 1318.856
Ac. 134.354

Comments
1.        From the above statistics, it was observed that t he State Govt. has recovered just 10% of  the total land encroached  in Bhubaneswar.
2.       The  State Govt. i.e.,  the Eviction Squad  have miserably  failed to evict  the land encroachers despite several complaints  filed    by the common people.

Pradip Pradhan
M-9937843482
Date-9.4.18

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