Orissa may toughen law to evict, punish land encroachers
By IANSTuesday, October 26, 2010
BHUBANESWAR - Orissa is planning to toughen its existing law and bring a new act to free all state government lands from encroachers, Revenue Secretary Raj Kumar Sharma said Tuesday.
“Under the existing act, the encroachers are only asked to pay some amount of penalty which is inadequate. Under the proposed new law, they will be arrested and criminal actions would be taken against them,” he told IANS.
Sharma said a large numbers of government lands have been found encroached upon by people in both rural and urban areas and these are not being freed because of weak legal provisions.
According to him, the number of land encroachment cases currently pending with various administrations in the state for disposals would be more than two lakh.
The government is planning to toughen the existing Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment Act. Besides, if everything goes fine it may also introduce a new Orissa Land Grabbing Prohibition Bill in the next session of the assembly, he said.
The government is also planning to set up a special court for faster disposal of land grabbing cases, he said.
