HYDERABAD: Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Thursday instructed officials to act on a war footing to reclaim encroached irrigation properties and initiate measures to fence those properties to protect them from illegal occupation in the future.
During a review meeting with the officials of the Irrigation and Revenue departments and HYDRAA at the Secretariat, the minister asserted that there would be zero tolerance against irrigation land encroachments as these lands were worth hundreds of crores.
Uttam also urged the advocate general to appoint a special government pleader exclusively for the Irrigation department to deal with any legal issues arising in the process of land protection.
Referring to such encroachments in Hyderabad, the minister said: “Significant portions of land under Water and Land Management Training and Research Institute and Telangana Groundwater and Irrigation Research Laboratory near Gandipet and Rajendranagar have been encroached.
Out of 426.30 acres of land in these areas, 131.31 acres have been identified as encroached. Of this, 81.26 acres fall under the Information Technology Investment Region jurisdiction and are currently under court litigation, while the remaining 50 acres have been directly encroached.”
Uttam said that 20 cases related to these encroachments are pending in the district court and two more cases are being heard by the high court.
To recover the high-value lands, the minister instructed officials from the Irrigation department, HYDRAA, Revenue and R&R wings to work in close coordination.
He also directed the Irrigation department to prepare a complete inventory of all lands, buildings and quarters across Telangana on a priority basis. Further, he instructed the immediate repossession of illegally occupied Irrigation department residential quarters and asked officials to submit a comprehensive report on the same.
The minister also directed the officials to study the possibility of setting up solar power plants on irrigation lands abutting canals and lands in irrigation projects across the state.