LUCKNOW: Cracking the whip on land sharks, the Yogi government has reclaimed 67,000 hectares of land since it came to power in 2017. Besides developing an anti-land mafia portal, land mafia task force was also constituted in every district to ensure quick disposal of the complaints received on the portal. A total of 2.8 lakh complaints regarding land grabbing received on this portal and other modes have been successfully disposed of since May 2017.
A senior officer said that the consistent campaign has led to registration of 22,838 cases related to the revenue department and 814 civil suits. Likewise, 4,210 FIRs have also been lodged against land mafia.
On the other hand, over 2,300 land encroachers were identified as land mafias and 182 sent to jail in the past threeand-a-half years of this government. Explaining the working of anti-land mafia task force, additional district magistrate, administration, Lucknow, Amar Pal Singh, who heads such a task force in the capital, said that after receiving a complaint, the task force reaches the spot and after freeing the land from illegal encroachment, hands it over to the department concerned.
Land registered in the name of government departments such as irrigation, education, public works, forest or others have been a soft target of land mafia for a long time. After the online registration option was provided, the government has received 2,88,745 complaints. This included complaints about encroachment of private land. The portal offers the option of anonymous complainants too. “The portal also provides the facility to seek information regarding the action taken, its monitoring and feedback,” a revenue official said.
Police has seized and razed the properties of a number of mafia including Atiq Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari, Yogesh Bhadora, Ramesh Pradhan, Badan Singh, Sundar Bhati, Vijay Mishra, Khan Mubarak and Imlaqh.