Land worth Rs 100 crore retrieved from ‘encroachment’ in Jammu

Jammu: The housing and urban development department has removed decades-old “encroachment” on prime land worth Rs 100 crore in Jammu during a special drive, senior officials said on Sunday.

A strong contingent of police and civilian officials reached Gole Market in the posh Gandhi Nagar locality and retrieved the prime land from encroachment, they said.

All entry points to Gole Market were sealed and no vehicle was allowed there during the drive, they said.

“We have removed encroachments on 7 kanals of prime land valuing over Rs 100 crore. These were under encroachments for several decades,” principal secretary of the housing and urban development department Dheeraj Gupta, who supervised the anti-encroachment drive since late Saturday night, told PTI.

Gupta said the land belonged to the Jammu and Kashmir housing board. “We took measures to protect our land. There is no issue of it at all,” he said.

“We have zero tolerance towards encroachments and the government is committed to removal of each and every encroacher from government lands,” he said.

People who occupied the prime land, however, said they were allotted the plots decades ago, a claim denied by the housing board. The occupants of the land also claimed that a court had put a stay on any action by the government. Denying the claim, a housing board official said, “This is not the plot of land which is under stay. It is an encroachment.” (PTI)