The Kandla Port Trust launched an anti-encroachment drive in Gandhidham and freed land worth crores of rupees from the encroachers.
The Kandla Port Trust (KPT) launched an anti-encroachment drive in the port town of Gandhidham on Thursday and freed its land worth crores of rupees from the encroachers in a single day. KPT is the only agency vested with powers by the central government to regulate the port and township land in the town.
“The encroachment drive has been on for the past three months. On Wednesday, with support of the local police, we could raze 30 to 35 illegally constructed cabins and huts near the main gate of Kandla Special Economic Zone. We also stopped the ongoing construction by one on another 20 acres of land which is worth lot of money,” said a source in the estate department of KPT.
The source said that the estate department had also issued notices for removal of encroachment of about 60 hutment dwellers on the plots originally given to 1998 cyclone victims.
The sources said that a team led by KPT estate department official BH Gehani managed to demolish an illegally constructed temple at Ganeshnagar and also brought an end to ongoing similar exercise by members of the minority community nearby.
“This was one of the most dangerous operations, but the timely arrival of police force from Gandhidham helped,” a high official in the team said on Thursday preferring anonymity.
Given free hand, the estate department removed 250 hutments from Mundra circle at Adipur in its first drive and cleared pucca constructions in sector 1 to 12. The sources said that one encroacher was operating his service station on a port land worth over Rs1 crore.
The encroacher challenged this in high court but lost when the court justified the removal of encroachment.
Sources said that the team was getting support from new chairman PD Vaghela, who is on five year deputation from the state government with considerable experience in land management because of having worked in the revenue department.
Sources added that Vaghela was now in touch with the district collector and magistrate to use Pasa against the land mafia currently operating in the Kandla complex.
Sources said that most of the encroachment had been on 19 big open plots for years given by the port trust to Gandhidham municipalities for public purposes. Since the land remained unutilised, it was encroached with involvement of political bigwigs.
Sources added that there was a little or no encroachment on the remaining land after allotment to various government and non government agencies by the port trust.
“We had acquired 6,920 acres of land for constructions of new township for the country’s upcoming major ports. Of this, 2,600 acres were given to the Sindhu Resettlement Corporation (SRC) for rehabilitation of Sindhi migrants from Pakistan on account of the country’s partition. 200 acres were given to the Indian railways and 40 to 100 acres to various other departments of the government.
After reserving 1,100 acres for greenbelt as required under environmental laws, 750 acres have been kept for port-related uses. We are now left with 1,000 acres of land.’’ sources said.
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