Kolkata, Oct 2 (IANS) The West Bengal government is set to undertake a comprehensive survey of government-vested land across the state to identify encroachments and facilitate the recovery of illegally occupied plots, officials said.
The West Bengal Land Records & Survey Directorate, which comes under the state land & land revenue department, will conduct the statewide survey.
A senior department official said the survey will determine the exact boundaries of each state government-vested land to find out how much government land has been encroached upon and how much is in the government’s possession.
“A decision had been taken to erect permanent poles or pillars along the boundaries to maintain the state government’s occupation of the recovered land,” the state land & land revenue department said.
According to officials, although, as per records, there are huge plots of government-vested land, there is confusion over what percentage of that land is actually in the possession of the state government and what percentage has been encroached upon.
“There are reports that vested land under the jurisdiction of several state government departments, which had been lying idle for years, was gradually encroached upon over a period of time either by individual encroachers or by institutional encroachers. Now, as the new state government is approaching to attract big-ticket investments by announcing the new land policy, that initiative would require huge plots of land at one go. Hence, the survey is being conducted to identify and reclaim the encroached vested lands in the state,” said the department official.
The Bengal Land Records & Survey Directorate had already floated a request for proposal or tender to get the work going by appointing an expert agency. “Once the survey is completed, it will be easier for the administration to determine the exact location, size and boundaries of government-vested land,” the state government official said.
For this purpose, the department will use the sophisticated global navigation satellite systems to make the process absolutely accurate. The state government had also set a deadline to complete the survey process within the next six months.
–IANS
src/skp
