The Madras High Court has taken serious note of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India’s (CAG) recent performance audit report blaming the Tamil Nadu government as well as the local bodies in the State for their failure to check the menace of encroachment of government lands and waterbodies despite several laws in force.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam, suo motu, included the Chief Secretary as one of the respondents to a public interest litigation petition filed by V. Munikrishnan, 30, an agriculturist from Coimbatore, against the encroachment of waterbodies in the State and directed her to file a status report by February 27 listing steps taken pursuant to the CAG report.
According to the CAG report, though the revenue department was the custodian of all government lands in the State, it was the responsibility of various government departments and local bodies to protect those properties under their charge. Several enactments as well as standing orders were in place to safeguard the lands from encroachments.
7% of land encroached
Yet, out of 29.03 lakh hectares of government lands across the State as of June 2017, about 2.05 lakh hectares (7%) was under encroachment. Further, the percentage of encroachments of government properties in various districts of the State ranged from 1.25 in Tirunelveli to 23.9 in the fully urban Chennai district.
Further, of the 2.05 lakh hectares of encroached land, permanent residential structures had been built on 26,471 hectares and permanent non-residential structures had come up on 13,846 hectares.
A major portion of 1.46 lakh hectares was encroached through temporary crops and trees and the rest of 17,557 hectares was encroached through other temporary means. Although the government had classified encroachments on water ways, grazing lands, public paths, forest areas and so on as “objectionable encroachments”, 79,615 hectares of government lands falling under such categories were under encroachment as of March 2016 and 39,261 hectares were on water courses.
Water bodies
Pointing out that the encroachments on water courses amounted to 49% of the objectionable encroachments, the CAG report said this had an adverse impact on storage capacity of waterbodies and hydrology of the streams besides being a reason for floods as well as depletion in water table.
The Tamil Nadu Land Encroachment Act of 1905, the Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act of 1975, the Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction of Encroachments Act of 2007, the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act of 1920 and the Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act of 1994 were some of the laws in place to prevent encroachments.
Still, in the eight sample districts of Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, the Nilgiris, Pudukottai, Tiruch, Tiruvallur and Vellore, taken up for the study, the CAG found that out of 54,400.72 hectares of government lands under encroachment as of July 2011, the government was able to retrieve only 5,301.72 hectares (9.75%) between 2011 and 2016.
Apart from seeking a report from the Chief Secretary on action taken pursuant to the alarming report by the CAG, the Division Bench directed the Public Works Department secretary to file a separate report with respect to removal of encroachments from waterbodies and water courses under the department’s control.
