Deadline to be extended for regularising houses on revenue land

Bagair hukum farmers and those cultivating forest land will not be evicted if their application for land grant is pending before various committees, Law Minister T B Jaychandra told the Legislative Assembly on Friday.

Replying to a debate on forest and land encroachments, the minister said that there would be no scope for evicting those whose applications were pending before various committees. The applications have been filed under Forest Rights Act, Form 94-C and other laws.

Jayachandra said that a circular to this effect was issued on January 17 and a similar direction would be given once again to ensure that encroachers on small extent of land would not be put into trouble.

The minister said the government would extend the deadline to submit application to the government seeking regularisation of houses constructed illegally on revenue land. The earlier deadline was December 25, 2014. Now, following request by the legislators, the deadline is being extended up to May 31, 2015.  He said that encroachers of government land had been booked under Section 192A of Land Revenue Act and the government would decide on withdrawing such cases.

The State would also recommend to the Union environment and Forest ministry to regularise encroachments in cases where the extent of encroachment is less than three acres. The government would consider a relief and rehabilitation package for those who have encroached upon the forest land, not more than three acres and after 1978.

The High Court has directed the State government to remove large-scale encroachments on government land and hence the deputy commissioners had been directed to clear encroachments on more than 10 acres. According to the V Balasubramanian report, still 12.01 lakh acres of encroached land is yet to be reclaimed. The government has so far received applications seeking regularisation of cultivation in 7.54 lakh acres of bagair hukum land.