Legislature Committee urges government to take action

Bangalore, Jul 7(UNI) Karnataka Joint Legislative Committee Chairman A T Ramaswamy today urged the State government to take legal action immediately against the bigwigs involved in encroachment of the government lands.

The Committee, with members from both the House, was formed to inquire into encroachment of government lands.

Addressing newsmen here, Mr Ramaswamy regretted saying that the State government has taken action only against small-time land encroachers while big-ones were left scotfree.

Naratting an incident of land grabbing of a tank-bed in the prime locality in the city, Mr Ramaswamy said that Bank loans were raised after pledging land belonging to State Forest Department as security. "Over Rs 70 crore worth of land belonging to state government was encroached after fabricating records and no action were initiated to file criminal case against the offenders" he added Alleging that the officials including revenue and law enforcement agencies have colluded with the landgrabbers, Mr Ramaswamy warned that if no action was taken to take back the encroached land and punish the guilty, common man will lose confidence on the sincerity of the state government.

Mr Ramaswamy also announced that the Committee would submit its second part of its interim report on the land grabbing within this month to the Karnataka Legislature.

The Committee, in its earlier interim report, has estimated that about 27,000 acres of land had been encroached by land Mafia and pointed towards the involvement of "VVIPs including politicians", but has so far not come up with the list of encroachers.

UNI