Srinagar, April 15: Jammu & Kashmir’s LG administration is likely to announce what is being christened as the Anti-Land Encroachment Policy, which would formally define a Negative Land List and enable the administration to evict state land holders from their current land possessions.
Official sources told Ziraat Times that the policy would aim to retrieve about 6 lakh kanals of state land which is still under the use of various sections of J&K.
Political parties, including National Conference, PDP, Congress, Panters Party, CPI-M etc have demanded that such policy decisions must be left to future democratically elected governments in J&K, and that such private dispossession of land could have negative medium and long term implications on J&K’s economy.
According to highly placed sources in the administration, the policy has been finalised and is now being forwarded to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for concurrence and approval.
According to sources, those low income social groups of J&K who have built their small houses on state land, have no other land or are dependent on a small piece of such land for their livelihood may be exempted from eviction and could be regularised, subject to certain conditions.
Official sources told Ziraat Times that once the policy is announced and published, state land encroachments shall be dealt with accordance to the new policy. The policy is said to deal with all kinds of state land, including residential, commercial, agriculture, kahcharai and other State land.
Recently, at an event at Jammu University, LG Manoj Sinha had said that some influential persons in J&K had encroached upon Government land for their next four generations and that all such land will be retrieved.
persons will not be spared while poor people will not be touched after resumption of anti-encroachment drive. Even in the previous drive, similar was the case in which poor persons were not affected.
The policy is said to define entire State land under a “negative list” the details of which shall be digitally entered into the land management software for reference by Registrars and Sub Registrars, responsible for registration of land documents.
