JAMMU: Taking tough stand against encroachment of forest land in the state, Minister for Forests and Environment, Bali Bhagat on Monday, said nobody is above law if found guilty. Attacking the previous governments over the alleged destruction of records of encroached forest land, Bhagat said that there was a big nexus among senior politicians, some police and revenue officials, who have encroached upon a large part of forest land in the state and records of such land have been destroyed.
“No politician or officials of police, revenue, forest or any other department found involved in nexus with land grabbers will be spared”, the minister warned.
When asked about involvement of BJP’s Transport Minister A.G Kohli in encroaching upon State forest land in Bathindi area of Jammu district, Bhagat said that though, he has not received any official report in this regard but action will be initiated if the said minister is found guilty.
Its pertinent to mention that STATE TIMES carried a report under the caption ‘BJP minister owns ’empire’ on forest land’ on 1st June, 2015 regarding usurping of around 10 to 15 Kanals of forest land at Nowabad Sunjwan. The report has also mentioned about encroachments in Sunjwan, Bathindi, Raika and Sidhra areas of Jammu District comprising about 3200 Kanals of forest land.
Stressing that the government will identify and retrieve the land from the encroachers, he said, “We came to know that these politicians have got the record of such land destroyed in a systematic way but we will dig out the records from archives and retrieve the land from illegal occupation.”
He said that the people who had encroached upon forest land and now facing eviction were spreading rumours that such move was aimed at a particular community.
“The people who are spreading such rumours are those who have encroached upon the State land. Whosoever has encroached upon the State land irrespective of religion or political affiliation will face the music,” Bhagat affirmed.
“An inter-departmental committee has been constituted for conducting demarcation of the land which has been encroached upon,” he said.
The minister informed that 13,000 hectares of encroached forest land have been identified, out of which 3100 hectares
ave been retrieved so far.
“The Forest Department has also recovered and seized huge quantity of illegally extracted timber besides seizing 21 vehicles, 41 horses and two boats used for smuggling”, he added.
The minister also said that the department has taken various steps to promote forest industry in the State under which timber products would be sold in other states.
Bhagat who also holds the charge of Social Welfare Department said that Jammu and Kashmir has become the first State in the country to implement ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He also said that the department has also decided to double the one time compensation given to widows in the State.
Minister calls for testing of ‘clear’ samples
Jammu: Forest Minister Bali Bhagat, who also holds the charge of Social Welfare department said the government had collected some food samples issued to Anganwadi Centres of which Srinagar samples have been found adulterated where as Jammu samples have been found ‘clear’ of adulteration. He said, “This is someway surprising and asked the samples be sent outside the State for testing their purity.