SRIKAKULAM: Taking advantage of the general elections as the police and the official machinery was busy with election duties, land grabbers had a field day occupying several acres of government land worth Rs 100 crore at Dola tank at LN Peta Junction. Although revenue officials filed a complaint against the occupation of government land with the local police station, land sharks started construction of buildings ignoring the officials’ warning. Under the pressure of the officials, the land grabbers stopped the constructions, but only temporarily.
After announcement of poll schedule, they resumed construction activity again. As the occupied lands are adjacent to the main road, they are constructing the commercial buildings with a view to get high rents. One of the land grabbers, K Harish constructed a building on the occupied land and leased it to Andhra Bank.
Similarly another person occupied a bus shelter to construct a building. Witnessing several land occupiers constructing commercial buildings and earning high returns in the form of rents on the bank of the Dola tank, others started occupying the land and started constructing buildings.
According to village sources, a cent (a measurement) of land on the banks of Dola tank ranges between Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh in the market. The total extent of land of Dola tank is 11.5 acres. Out of the 11.5 acres, land grabbers occupied more than 10 acres.
Although the land is under the control of irrigation officials, they didn’t take any action against the occupiers. Although revenue officials had initiated action, that didn’t work out as they were largely confined to oral threats and filing cases with the local police station. They made several attempts to demolish the illegal constructions, but to avail.
On the reports published in TNIE about the occupation of government land at LN Peta Junction, District Joint Collector KVN Chakradhar Babu visited the site on February 22 and instructed the officials to take action against the land sharks. Not giving two hoots to the warnings of the JC, the land grabber started constructing the buildings again after a few days.
When contacted, LN Peta tahsildar JB Jaya Laxmi said they warned the land sharks several times and even seized the tools used in construction of buildings. She also said they filed cases against the land grabbers with the police.