Army to hand over 57 acres of land to J&K government

The Jammu and Kashmir government has set into motion the process of acquisition of 456 kanals (57 acres) of the total of 2005 kanals (251 acres) of land in the army’s possession in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

The army is expected to hand over the land to civil authorities by June 28. The development comes in the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last week’s decision to clear the J&K government’s proposal for vacating the land from the army’s possession for expansion of Kashmir University’s South campus in Anantnag.

An official of state government confirmed that they have initiated the process of acquiring the land from the army. “A team of revenue and defence estate officials accompanied by local army officials on Monday conducted preliminary demarcation of the land. The defence estates officials will depute its men and machinery on June 28 to carry final measurement and mapping of the land using Electronic Total Station machine,” he said.

The official said on the same day the district administration is expected to take over the possession of the land.