Hassan: The residents in Arakalagud are trying to grab revenue land amid warnings by Taluk Administration. The small town is also a taluk centre having an old fort of ancient Palegaras (custodians). The Palegaras dug up a trench to prevent the entry of enemies to the fort. Now, people are encroaching upon trench land.
The ward number two of the town have around ten acres of revenue land which is said to be a trench. Land grabbers have already encroached 75 per cent of the land, construct houses and even created records for their land. It is said that the Khata was created in survey numbers 181,182 and 324 in Mallipatna and Koppalu roads. The others observing this began constructing houses overnight. Many pro-people organisations and residents have complained to the Taluk Administration and urged to prevent encroachment. However, revenue officials failed to do so.
On Friday Tahsildar M. Srinivas inspected the spot, found that the houses were being constructed in revenue land without any records or valid documents. He instructed the Revenue Inspector and Village Accountants to issue notices to encroachers and evict them by using JCB.
Majula, Leela and others who were constructing their houses said that the Taluk Revenue officers should first cancel the Khata created in the survey numbers 181,182 and 324. They said if authorities cancel the illegal title deeds and Khata to previous encroachers of revenue land they would voluntarily evict their encroachments.
It is alleged that the electricity officials provide power connection to any building or hut only after availing NOC from local panchayat or corporation. But the officials have given power connection without collecting NOC. Before issuing NOC, officials verify the ownership of land.
When revenue officials tried to evict encroachers by using JCB, the encroachers staged protests sticking to evict the previous encroachers who constructed houses using influence. Then the JCB returned without evicting.
The illegal fresh encroachers say that they are poor, could not able to pay house rent. After constructing the house, they would get title deeds under the Akrama Sakrama scheme of the state government. They appealed to regularise their house construction as they did for five to eight year old encroachers.
