The ruling Biju Janata Dal, which faces the allegation of facilitating land grabbing bids by party men, industrial houses bureaucrats — both serving and retired — has at last done some face saving exercise. It has restored 1,301 acres of prime land on Puri beach to government, nearly 65 km from here.
The recovered lands, the current market price of which is estimated to be `1,300 crore, were fraudulently transferred to private individuals by some revenue department officials in connivance with some top influential local politicians.
This land, part of a 2,879-acre-long patch, was recorded in the names of 66 individuals by manipulation. The rest part of the land is still held by a host of top political leaders, retired and serving bureaucrats and business-class people.
The title of the 1,301 acres of land was restored after 34 years of long legal battle.
State revenue department deputy secretary Nihar Ranjan Mohanty, while disposing of eight cases on Saturday, found the lands were illegally recorded in the 1977 Land Settlement in the names of one Gadadhar Puspalaka and his family members.
He ordered that the title in the land be restored in the government’s name immediately.
Mr Mohanty has been given special power to settle the land disputes in Puri.
Sources said 12 revenue department officials along with six additional tehsildars had illegally recorded 2,869 acres of government land in the names of 66 persons.
In 1994, former Puri collector and district magistrate Suresh Mohapatra had directed the assistant settlement officer (technical) to file a petition in the Court of Commissioner of Land Consolidation. The officials concerned, however, sat over the petition for several years till media reports again castigated the administration for helping the land sharks.
After much hue and cry, the state government had asked the revenue divisional commissioner (central) to conduct a thorough probe into it.
The RDC had asked the settlement officer of the land to ascertain the number of landowners and initiate fresh hearing.
With the restoration of the land, the Samuka project, an international tourism promotion project of the government, is likely to get a boost as it has been delayed by a decade for want of land.