Kerala: Officials care less on encroachment

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The trust of a major religious community in the state was assigned 10.62 hectares of revenue land in Vadakevila in Kollam in 2006. But, perhaps after the trust realised that the village officials were least bothered, it began occupying the remaining two hectares not assigned to it. Apparently to give some authority to this illegal occupation, the trust even erected a statue of their spiritual leader in the illegally-occupied plot. To this date, no village officer or tahsildar has carried out the mandatory verification of land boundaries.

Such undetected encroachments are common across the state. Even a random inter-departmental check conducted recently has found that nearly 100 hectares of government land have been encroached upon for years with impunity. Various government bodies like KSEB and DTPC, too, have been found to encroach upon public land. However, encroachment is highest for residential purposes. For instance a private builder has been illegally utilising nearly 50 hectares of land in Kuttampuzha village in Kothamangalam (Ernakulam district), the fair value of which is Rs 10 crore. Commercial activities, too, have triggered encroachment of government land.

As per the Village Manual, the ‘village assistant’, who functions as special village officer and village inspector, should verify the boundary of government lands every three months for the detection of encroachments and submit a report to the village officer.  The cases detected by the village assistant have to be checked by the revenue inspector and the tahsildar. “Such verification as per the Village Manual is not conducted in more than 80 percent of the village offices across the state,” a top Revenue Department official said. “We found that village assistants never did such verification. Worse, the tahsildar or village officer are not known to insist on such reports,” the official added. What is of bigger concern is that a register of public complaints on encroachments is not maintained in a large majority of village offices.

“It is this non-verification that has resulted in non-detection of encroachment,” the official said.  Strangely, the Revenue Department has not initiated eviction proceedings despite court verdicts. For instance, the High Court in 2015 had ordered the eviction of individuals and government departments from three hectares of land in Peerumedu in Idukki. No action has been taken till date.  “It is the failure of the district collectors and tahsildars to monitor the evictions that has helped in sustaining and encroachments,” the official added.