The Revenue Department on Saturday cleared encroachments on government land in the Jalalnagar locality here and recovered the land from the encroachers.
It also served notice to them for their illegal occupation of government land.
According to official sources, the department found that some people had encroached on the land in the locality and the hillock adjacent to it. Many of them had leased out sites or sold them to poor people, who built huts on the sites without knowing the land belonged to the department. Though the department had earlier issued notices to the encroachers directing them to vacate the sites, they failed to do so.
A team of officials led by Ashok Jahagirdar, Raichur tahsildar, removed the huts.
He said the names of the private parties who had encroached on the land were Venkappa, Maremma and Venkamma. Some of the residents told Mr. Jahagirdar that they had purchased the sites and got them registered in their names. They claimed they had obtained permission from the authorities and had been living there for the last 10 years.
After verification of records, the tahsildar found that neither the Raichur city municipality nor the Raichur Development Authority had granted permission to the residents to construct the huts . He said notices would be served to the private parties who had sold the sites.
