All procedures prescribed for paddy and wetland conversion were violated by the previous government in according permission to acquire land for the Haripad medical college and converting paddy and wetland for the Kottayam Corridor, Kodimatha mobility hub, and the Kumarakom ecotourism village projects, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said.
The CAG report on the revenue sector for 2016, tabled in the Assembly on Monday, said sanction for the medical college was accorded without fulfilling the provisions of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act. The same applies in the case of the corridor and mobility hub projects too. The government granted exemption from the Act for the tourism project on the Methran Kayal paddy fields. But for the Medi City project, sanction for land conversion was issued without the permission of the Agriculture Production Commissioner, who is also the State-level monitoring committee chairman.
The sanctions were cancelled subsequently. The Revenue Department does not have a system for timely detection of illegal conversion of agriculture and wetland and revival the illegally converted land, the report says.
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The revenue divisional officers and and District Collectors were not effectively monitoring the eviction of encroachments, the report says.