Karnataka government set to amend law on land grabbing

The state government is all set to amend the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act 2011-12 to exempt encroachments outside the limits of BBMP and corporations from the ambit of law.

The amended Bill, likely to be placed in the legislature session in the next two to three days, comes a year after the government told the High Court that individuals and groups have been indulging in unprecedented and fraudulent sale of government lands.

Arkalgud MLA A T Ramaswamy, who chaired a joint legislature committee on encroachments, said the amendment shows that the "land mafia is in control of the government and not the other way round".

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The law was enacted in 2011 after two reports raised the issue of rampant encroachments of lands in Bengaluru Urban district.

The report by Ramaswamy-led committee said 13,614.37 acres of land belonging to 15 government agencies had been grabbed by "real estate sharks and encroachers".

The joint task force committee led by former IAS officer V Balasubramaniam came up with an even bigger figure: 24,000 acres valued at Rs 40,000 crores had been encroached.

And there is the figure calculated by the Forest Department, which estimates that over 60,000 acres have been illegally granted for other purposes by revenue officials. A total of 2.04 lakh acres of forest land is under encroachment.

The amendment bill, accessed by DH, seeks to limit the Land Grabbing Act's ambit to the limits of the BBMP and the city corporations.

While the existing section 2(d)(i) extends blanket protection to land held by all government agencies and departments, the amendment not only limits the law's application to BBMP and corporation limits but also seeks to close all the pending cases.

The encroachments outside the city areas will not face the penal provisions of minimum one year jail apart from the penalty. The stated objective: "To avoid criminal proceedings against farmers who have encroached government land in rural areas".

Sources in the government said over the years, governments have come under pressure from MLAs who argued that farmers have been targeted under the Act.

Speaking to DH, Ramaswamy said it is true that poor farmers were targeted through the Act, but the real culprits have not been touched.

"The Act has been misused by officials and those in power to penalise the poor for years. Farmers are pulled to the court despite providing documents showing their qualification for regularisation under Form 57. The rich and land grabbers have never faced a problem," he said.

Ramaswamy noted the need to differentiate between encroachment and land grabbing.

"To ensure that the poor should not suffer, the government has already said that farmers cultivating land up to 3 acres will not be dispossessed. Then there is Form 57, allowing regularisation," he said.

To a question on the illegal land-use change, the Arkalgud MLA said though Section 94A of Land Revenue Act bars grant or regularisation of land within 18-km distance of the BBMP, 10 km of corporations, 5 km from municipal councils, large-scale sanctions have been made.

"In violation of the rule, over 5,000 acres have been regularised. Crores of rupees have changed hands. I believe that if the government recovers the land, it will be worth 2 years of annual budget. But they won't. The amendment shows that the land mafia is in control of the government and not the other way round," he said.

V Balasubramanian said the major violations involving land deals have moved out of the cities long ago.

"The mafia started grabbing lands outside the BBMP and other city corporation limits due to the saturation in the core areas of the city," he said.

Referring to Part 9 of his report, he said a thorough investigation followed by a survey is required in all the cities and their surrounding areas.

Revenue Minister R Ashoka and Additional Chief Secretary of the department Kapil Mohan could not be reached for a comment.