Task force and land protection teams to safeguard govt lands in Khammam

Khammam: With an objective to protect valuable government lands in Khammam city, a task force committee has been constituted, according to district Collector VP Gautham.

The committee was formed with Khammam Municipal Commissioner as chairman, Khammam RDO as member convener, city ACP, Khammam Urban tahsildar, municipal corporation deputy city planning officer, assistant director Survey and Land Records, Irrigation Department executive engineer and district Registrar as members.

Four land protection teams were formed with revenue, police, irrigation and municipal officials to protect government lands. They would identify the government lands, regularly inspect the respective lands besides taking measures to prevent encroachment of such lands, Gautham revealed.

The teams would have to take steps for installing fencing, CCTV cameras, sign boards indicating the land belongs to the government, develop plantations, parks, playgrounds and parking in government lands for public needs.

Unauthorised constructions on government lands have to be identified and they should be removed immediately. Steps should be taken to cancel illegally allotted house numbers. Registration of prohibited lands and fraudulent registrations should be cancelled.

Criminal cases should be registered against the encroachers. Khammam city was spread over 95 square kilometres and jurisdiction for four land protection teams would be earmarked for the protection of government lands, Gautham noted.

As many as 6288 applications were received in the city under GO 58 and 1056 applications were approved, while 367 applications were received under GO 59 and 67 applications were approved.
Vacant lands, for which applications were submitted for regularisation under GO 58 and 59 and were rejected, should be taken into possession.

Fencing and CCTV cameras should be installed at such lands and regular inspections should be carried out by the authorities.

Irrigation officials have to provide the database of the lands in their possession and if there was alienation anywhere, it should immediately be informed to the police as well as the revenue and municipal officials, the Collector said.

If anyone was found to be provoking innocent people to encroach government lands hoping for regularisation in the future, criminal cases should be registered against such persons and bound over. For complaints on land encroachments public could contact control room number: 1077 or 9063211298, he added.