14359 hectares forest land under encroached by land sharks in Jammu and Kashmir

By J&K Monitor 

GNS JAMMU: 14,359 hectares of forest land has been encroached upon in Jammu and Kashmir by land sharks. The data revealed that in just last two years a total 9282 hectors of land was encroached upon, whereas, only 15 hectares of area could be cleared from the land grabbers. On the contrary only 64 hectares of forest land in Jammu and 944 hectares in Kashmir have been retrieved from the encroacher’s in past few years.

As per the sources, despite tall claims by the government to take action against the encroachers, in Kashmir valley 4,877 hectares is under the encroachers while 9,482 hectares in Jammu region has been galloped by the land mafia under the very nose of the administration.

The figures provided by the sources indicate that maximum encroachment has taken place in Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch districts in Jammu region and Anantnag, Pahalgam, Shopian, Jhelum Valley, Lidder, Tangmarg in Kashmir.

A senior officer from the forest department on condition of anonymity said that the studies conducted by the department has revealed that 1860 kanals of forest land on the outskirts of Jammu city had been encroached by the land grabbers with active connivance of few corrupt revenue employees.

“This rapid encroachment had resulted in the sharp decrease in the forest area in Jammu and Kashmir from over 24214 sq.kms to20230 sq kms between 2003 and 2007”, said a source.

In fact the forest land and wealth in Jammu and Kashmir had come under the threat of not only the land grabbers and timber smugglers but also of militants who carried out denudation of forest area at a faster rate than that of the land mafia.Well there are number of factors responsible for rapid deforestation and loss of forest cover in Jammu and Kashmir.

Even official reports indicate that within a span of some years till 2008 over 15900 hectares of forest land had been encroached upon been lost to colonisers and to the agriculturists during the last 50 years.

Alarmed over the defiance of the rules, Jammu & Kashmir Government had decided to approach the Supreme Court (SC) to retrieve the state land, but so far little headway has been made in this regard.