Srinagar: The district administration on Wednesday launched a demolition drive in south Kashmir’s Shopian district to retrieve the land given to many beneficiaries under the Roshni Act.
The demolition of private buildings, shops and retrieval of land given under Roshni Act has started in district Shopian, an official spokesperson said Wednesday.
The first drive against beneficiaries, he said, was carried out in Awneera Halqa of Zainapora and 15 kanals of land were retrieved.
“Besides retrieving land granted under this Act, an anti-encroachment drive against occupants of state land has also been intensified by the revenue authorities in the district,” he said.
He further said that a village-wise list of encroached land has been made and the eviction process will be carried out in phases in the coming days.
According to the official spokesperson, the District Magistrate, Shopian, Sachin Kumar Vaishya said that the High Court directions would be implemented in letter and spirit to retrieve the encroached land along with the state land allotted under Roshni Act, 2007.
“The Roshni Act was enacted in 2001 with the twin objective of generating resources for financing power projects and conferment of proprietary rights to the occupants of state land,” he said
He further added that the High Court had recently declared the Act “unconstitutional” and asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to take up the case.
The District Magistrate appreciated the efforts of the team and maintained that such drives would continue in the district, the official spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the Ramban district administration also said it had retrieved 4,498 Kanal encroached land and those owned by Roshni scheme beneficiaries.
They did not disclose the recovery from Roshni beneficiaries.
According to the Additional Deputy Commissioner Ramban, Harbans Lal, the land was retrieved by conducting a series of anti-encroachment drives by revenue department in past two days, including 80 Kanal in tehsil Ramsoo, 1164 Kanal in Gool, 375 Kanal in Rajgarh, 922 Kanal in Banihal, 180 Kanal – Batote, 134 Kanal in Ukhral and 1643 Kanal in Tehsil Ramban.
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