Badnawar: Illegal encroachment in Badnawar tehsil of Dhar district on grassland reserved for cattle are now taking toll on animals here in the areas.
Accordingly, thousands of bighas of land reserved as government grassland (or charnoi bhumi) in the revenue records are still on paper. But most of this land is illegally occupied by the people. And even now the situation is happening that where the vacant land is not visible, people have started building huts there and slowly even pucca houses are being built. If we look at the revenue figures, then the figures have come to the fore.
Locals officials on condition of anonymity claimed that earlier during princely period, they used to reserve hundreds of bighas of land in each village under them for grazing. The last land settlement in India was in 1938 and during this a considerable area of land was allotted for the purpose of Charnoi. In independent India as well, the Land Revenue Acts were prepared on the basis of the same. However, things were changed rapidly in the past couple of decades.
In the Badnawar area itself, encroachers have occupied about 20 thousand bighas of Charnoi and Nistar land. The grazing system of cows has ended due to the occupancy of Charnoi land. In many villages, land is not available even for the construction of buildings under government schemes and this all happening under nose of administration as no administrative officials here ready to pay attention and neither are the public representatives paying more attention to this. As a result of that, encroachment is being going on at rapid pace.
According to the revenue record, about 8 to 9 thousand hectares of government charnoi land is recorded in the Badnawar tehsil. In this, there is about 3-3 thousand grazing land in Badnawar and Kanvan and more than 2 thousand hectare in Nagda. Which mean, large area of land is allotted by the government for grazing animals here.
What rule has to say?
As per the rules, it is the responsibility of the Patwari to inform about the encroachment on the government charnoi or reserved land in the villages and if any encroachment is found, patwari has to report to the tehsildar or naib tehsildar by preparing Panchnama before the witnesses.
On the basis of this report, the tehsildar or naib tehsildar registers a case and issues a notice to the encroachers and calls for a reply. This is followed by the testimony of the witnesses and the Panchnama prepared by patwari. Following this, order is given to remove the encroachment.
However, in most of the cases, the Patwari does not submit the report of encroachment. Even if cases are prepared, it takes a long time to resolve them. And then the invasive makes the crop ready. Even if the order is passed, the encroachers bring a stay order by submitting an appeal in the senior court, thus encroachment in the rural area has become a business.
