In Mysuru, majority of govt land yet to be reclaimed

A measly 575 acres recovered against 12,500 acres encroached land

While the issue of encroachment of government lands has been making waves in the State with every passing day, in Mysuru district, of the total 12,550 acres of encroached government land identified, only 575 acres of land have been cleared.

Reacting to media queries, Revenue and District in-charge Minister V Sreenivas Prasad said, however there was no deadline to clear the encroachments, as it was a continuous process. In Mysuru district alone, a total of 1.69 lakh acres of land was available with the government. In Mysuru division, comprising eight districts among 19.32 lakh acres of government land, 2.15 lakh acres were identified as encroached, with 5,052 acres of land being reclaimed.

Volunteers

The minister said, in some districts, the encroachers have volunteered to hand back the government land.

The minister claimed that, a total of 31,537 acres of government land has been reclaimed in the last seven months in the State, while 4.23 lakh acres of land remained to be cleared from the land grabbers. According to the reports tabled by A T Ramaswamy Committee and retired IAS officer Balasubramanian, there are 62.25 lakh acres of government lands in the State, including 13.02 lakh acres of land listed as encroached.

However, 7.45 lakh acres of land are cultivated under Bagair Hukum, and the actual extent of land encroached is 5.55 lakh. Till last March, one lakh acres of encroachment had been cleared.

Stating that the Governor had given his consent to try such cases in special courts, Prasad said that the process to appoint judges to such courts, was on.