Deputy Commissioner, Hazaribagh, Ravishankar Shukla has begun day to day monitoring of the action being initiated on Khasmahal land identified in Hazaribagh town and its surrounding areas. Initiating action as per the directive of Jharkhand High Court he had issued a
general notice to all those who are in illegally possessing the land. Shukla made it clear that this step will not only increase the revenue of the government but also ample land will be available in the town area to be used for public purpose.
Talking with newsmen in his office chamber Shukla informed that in Hazaribagh town and its surroundings 796.92341 acres Khasmahal land is available as per official record. The land is scattered in 19 revenue villages out of 22 around the city. Out of the identified 796.92341 acres, 643.46 acres land has been leased for building construction, 118.05 acres as chapparbandi lease, 5.10 acres as commercial lease and 29.66 acres as orchard lease.
There are 1499 lease holders as per our records. Out of 796.92341 acres Khasmahal land lease of only 237.8433 acres has been renewed so far and applications for renewing the lease is pending before the state Government and commissioner court is of about 16.1592 acres. It simply means that most of the khasmahal land occupied by various persons is without any concrete document.
Previously the district administration has cancelled the lease of 130.83 acres and has taken back for public purpose but still this land is under occupation of various people for whom I had issued a general notice to produce paper or to vacate the land within 14 days.
In presence of SDO Aditya Ranjan and other officials DC informed that the first phase of survey of khasmahal land has been completed by his officers and he had constituted 5 teams of officials to make the second round of survey to identify the encroachments, change of title without proper permission, change of purpose of the use of land etc. because various complaints are pouring in his office that many people are earning a lot of money by using khasmahal land in commercial purposes without prior order of any government body or official.
He said that in first phase we are going to get back the 130.83 acres land available in the town and its surrounding because the government has already cancelled the lease and is now government property.
We will develop parks, community halls, parking, school, college, commercial complexes etc. which will not only increase governments revenue but also serve the general people.
Since the announcement of DC Ravishankar Shukla talks in the town is getting hot to hotter because everyone knows that the persons having possession of khasmahal lands are influential ones and all those officials who tried to open this Pandora box were immediately transferred from here in past.
So now the denizens are eagerly waiting the next step of BJPs Raghuvar Das’s Government whose local leaders always remained vocal on this issue on previous Governments.