Shelters, Livelihoods, Encroachments : Long Wait For Poor In J&K

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said that the influential and powerful persons have grabbed the state property of kacharia and state land from past fifteen years. He also said these persons are giving this process a twist to grind their own axe. Honourable was addressing on the occasion of inaugration of Civil Services Officers institute at Jammu. The current drive against encroachers revealed that these powerful persons have encroached these types of lands at the prime locations. Not only these powerful persons poor people too have encroached these types of land but they have encroached either for constructing houses or have encroached one or two kanals and may have planted non fruit bearing trees on it and somewhere these patches have been fenced and such lands can and are retrieved easily but the influential persons have constructed business units and have earned a lhuge money and this business has been continued from last many years by these land grabbers. As per reports these persons have grabbed this type of land at prime locations in the Union territory like Phalgam, Srinagar, Jammu and many other prime locations and this has been also prroved by the statement of G. Nabi Azad, who today stated that encroached land should be retrieved completely from these grabbers.
Few days back G. Nabi Azad had a direct conversation with Home minister Amit shah in this regard and he made a statement after meeting Home minister. His first and the second statements vary and the second one reflects that really there is land grabbing by influential persons. Here the question arises had only poor landless people made encroachments then small patches may have been occupied and big chunks of this land may have been open but situation is different. Day by day as the process continues one sees that really rich men have encroached big patches and have earned a lot of money. Even many people have sold this land to others and have earned lakhs of rupees there by making money by illegal ways. Common masses have become aware of this during this process. Firstly there was hue and cry every where but as the process increases common people became silent by knowing that there are “big fishes” upon whom government has thrown its cage. Talk of the town is government is doing good job but at the same time these poor people are hopeful that allotments from five to ten marlas will be announced in their favour as they hope in the sayings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday when he was addressing the Krishnaguru Eknaam Akhanda Kirtan for World Peace held at Krishnaguru Sevashram in Assam in which he said that government has given priority to the deprived. Really Nation gives priority to deprived and Duniya Umeed par qayim hai. Poor people of Jammu & Kashmir are waiting for the moment they are allotted land for shelters and livelihoods.
(The author is Incharge Record Room at DC Office Anantnag. The views, opinions, facts, assumptions, presumptions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”.)
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