Rourkela: The southern part of this town has become a happy hunting ground for the land mafia. They are forcibly occupying land giving scant respect to the law. There have been several cases where such illegal land grabbing has come to the fore. Initially, the authorities were not keen to take preventive measures.
However, because of severe opposition from the local villagers, the administration has asked the revenue inspector (RI) to provide a report on illegal land grabbing. The villagers meanwhile pointed out that despite informing sub-collector Bijaya Nayak on this issue, no steps were taken. They had written a letter (copy with Orissa POST) to the sub-collector two months back, but even now land grabbing continues.
Attempts to contact Nayak over the phone failed as repeated calls went unanswered. Sources informed Sunday that the ‘anawadi’ plots are being grabbed. Then the land is plotted for construction of houses and sold to parties for anything between rupees one lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh. Sources informed that a person by the name of Indrajit Sahu is the kingpin among the land-grabbers. He has a relative working at the local tehsil office. The latter informs Sahu about the ‘anawadi’ land helping the former to occupy the land illegally. The matter came to light Saturday when a group of people belonging to a gang went to measure an ‘anawadi land. The villagers prevented them from doing so and lodged a complaint at the Tangarpalli police station, informed a local. “We had complained about these illegal activities to the police earlier also.
However, preventive steps have not been taken,” the villagers said. Attempts to reach the second officer of Tangarpalli failed as his phone was out of network area.
Initially, Rourkela tehsildar Nibedita Pradhan refused to talk on this issue. However, later on, she said, “I have asked the RI to investigate and file a report. Till the report comes, I will not be in a position to say anything.”