Bhubaneswar, Aug. 21: The state government has initiated measures to remove encroachments by nine private engineering colleges and other technical institutes in the city and its outskirts.
Of the nine institutes that have been served eviction notices, five are located in Bhubaneswar tehsil, three in neighbouring Jatni and one in Balianta.
A senior official of revenue department said the respective tehsildars had been instructed to take immediate steps to evict squatters and lodge FIRs with the police against the offenders.
“Some of the violators have gone to court. We have asked the officials to take steps for early disposal of court cases,” the official said.
The department of technical education, too, is contemplating action against these institutes. At a meeting of officials last month, officials of the technical education department were asked to inform the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) and All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to take action against these institutes. These colleges may have given false affidavits to the authorities regarding their ownership of their land at the time of applying for recognition. The revenue department has forwarded the details of the erring technical institutes to the technical education department.
A senior official said: “We have received the revenue department’s communication and are examining the issue.”
Earlier, the revenue department had identified 32 private engineering colleges and other technical institutes, which had either encroached government land or violated the land rules by using agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes without necessary clearance from the government.
Bhubaneswar tehsildarManas Samal said: “We have served a 30-day eviction notice to the violating institutes. After the notice period is over, we will launch an eviction drive.”
Balianta tehsildar Srabani Patnaik said mutation (change of land ownership) and conversion of category of land had been allowed in case of four of the five technical institutes located in her jurisdiction.
“An eviction order has been passed in one case and it will taken up by the month end,” said Patnaik.
The move comes in the wake of a land scam that has rocked the state following publication of a report in The Telegraph along with a list of 29 persons who had been allotted more than one houses/plots under discretionary quota by the Bhubaneswar Development Authority in favour of themselves and their spouses or family members.
The discretionary quota issue snowballed into a political controversy, forcing the government to constitute a task force to probe into all allotments by government agencies.
Later, some more illegal land allotments by the Bbhubaneswar Development Authority and other government agencies came to the limelight.
The development authority cancelled a few multiple allotments and some allottees including BJD MLA Pranab Kumar Balabantaray surrendered double houses/plots.
On August 19, chief secretary Gokul Chandra Pati also asked the officials of the general administration department to keep a tight watch on government land and protect it from encroachment. He also directed them to form regular squads and haul up squads that do not carry out regular inspection and report about the encroachments.
