Govt land reclaim drive

Siliguri, May 24: The Darjeeling district administration has launched a drive to retrieve over 2,000 acres of government land encroached on by “land mafia”. The exercise started yesterday and a 17-acre plot worth around Rs 16 crore was cleared of an encroacher on the first day at Matigara. “The records with the land and land reforms department show the total government land in Darjeeling district is 7,826.2797 acres. Of this, 2,281.8124 acres have been encroached on, while 1,889.255 acres are vacant. Our plan is to clear most of the plots of encroachments and get them back,” said an official in the land and land reforms department. North Bengal development minister Gautam Deb said the “land mafia” was mostly active in areas around Siliguri. “We are conducting a survey of government land as several acres are being encroached on by land mafia in and around Siliguri. The practice is rampant in two blocks which are close to the town — Matigara in Darjeeling district and Dabgram-Fulbari in Jalpaiguri. The Darjeeling administration, led by the district magistrate, has already started a drive to evict the encroachers from the government land. An instruction has been given to the Jalpaiguri district magistrate also to initiate a similar move,” said Deb. Darjeeling district magistrate Saumitra Mohan explained the modus operandi of the land mafia. “Once a vacant government plot is identified, land sharks put up barbed wire fences or build a wall along the boundary. Next, they scout for prospective buyers promoting the land as a private property. Once the deal is struck, the encroachers sell the plot and accordingly, make changes in government records of the land concerned. We suspect some employees in the land and land reforms department are in cahoots with the racket.” Mohan said a 17-acre plot could be reclaimed on the first day of the drive. “We launched the drive yesterday and evicted an encroacher from a 17-acre plot, whose market value is around Rs 16 crore, at Matigara. Some unscrupulous persons occupied the land and sold it to someone who was running a factory there ” A district official said the person who was occupying the 17-acre land had been given a few days to remove the factory.