Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan on Thursday said that the State government was contemplating on enacting the Land Grab Prohibition Act to tackle big-time encroachment on government land in Munnar and other places.
Replying to the debate on the demands for grants for Revenue, Housing, and Disaster Management in the Assembly, Mr. Chandrasekharan said the Land Conservancy Act of 1957 was the only recourse available currently to prevent encroachment on government land, but it did not have enough teeth to tackle the new bout of encroachments, mostly by people from outside.
The government did not discriminate between old and new encroachments, though the new bouts focused on construction of resorts were bigger threats. The Revenue Department was examining in detail whether these resorts had licences, who issued them, and when the construction started. He agreed with the general views expressed by the legislators from both sides of political divide that settlers and encroachers should be given different treatments, with the latter being handled in a more sensitive manner because of their hard work in making the land productive.
Implementing manifesto
The Minister emphasised that the government had only one view on the issue of eviction of encroachers and the move to find differences between the Chief Minister and him was a futile exercise. He was merely implementing the LDF’s election manifesto that had come out with its stand on eviction and encroachment with great clarity.
The Minister said the resurvey work, which had been stalled since 2012, had resumed and land assignment committees in all the districts except Ernakulam had been reconstituted. In reply to Congress legislator Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan’s repeated interventions, Mr. Chandrasekharan said the government would examine the recent observations of the National Green Tribunal in the context of the Munnar encroachments, though some of the recommendations had been made earlier. The emphasis would be to carry out the resurvey work with people’s participation and involvement of local bodies.
The Minister also narrated the steps he had taken to improve the functioning of his department through e-governance, e-district, and online revenue recovery initiatives. Special squads had been set up to monitor indiscriminate levelling of land, leading to the loss of ecologically vital hillocks.