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| Kandrapara Autonomous College. Telegraph pictures |
Kendrapara, June 2: Land grabbers here have allegedly encroached the land of Kendrapara Autonomous College.
“The premier institution for higher education here has become a haven for land encroachers. Grabbing of valuable land, which is owned by the Kendrapara Autonomous College, has become the order of the day,” said Bhagaban Jena, a former teacher of the college.
Ever since it started functioning in 1959, the college was in possession of 78 acres of land. As things stand now, an estimated one-third of its land has come under the control of a number of encroachers. The college authorities hardly have 53 acres of land left at their disposal, while people from ‘influential sections’ of the society with alleged political connections have forcibly taken possession of the rest of the land.
With its land getting decimated day by day, the college authorities have become entangled in a series of land disputes litigations in their attempt to reclaim the ‘illegally’ occupied zones.
Basudev Das, an educationist, has put the blame both on the college authorities and the local revenue administration.
“This disturbing trend was set in motion in the 1980s. Within a span of two decades, land grabbers have taken control of almost one-third of the college land. The college management initially remained a silent spectator as encroachers occupied its land. When they woke up and drew the attention of the revenue administration department, there was no administrative support to curb this nefarious practice. Consequently, the situation worsened and encroachers moved ahead to acquire more land steadfastly,” Das said.
“The college management is sandwiched between several court cases and the coercive tactics of land grabbers. The college is forced to cough up lakhs of rupees to fight legal battles to reclaim its land which could, otherwise, have been used for academic and infrastructure development purposes,” said Pramod Sahu, a former student of the college and an activist.
Some people blame that the problem has emerged as the college authorities have failed to bring up a concrete boundary wall to ensure the safety of the landed property. Later, attempts had been made to raise a boundary wall. But, the land grabbing racket razed it, he said.
“The land, of which the college management is the original title holder, is first of all encroached on the basis of fictitious land records. There has been reports of sale and resale of the encroached land,” said Pravash Kumar Beuria, additional tehsildar.
“Majority of land dispute cases of the college are now under the high court scanner. We have warned the public not to make sale deed of such disputed land,” he added.
In the 1980s, a revenue divisional commission probe had been conducted into the college land scam. But follow-up action of probe’s findings was conspicuous by its absence, said Sahu.
“The college authorities have taken it in all seriousness to reclaim the occupied land. But the desired support from government agencies is not forthcoming. The college management is locked up in as many as 22 civil land disputes litigation right from the high court to the lower courts. We have recently taken possession of about one acre of encroached land following a high court decree.
“We are hopeful that all the encroached land would be reclaimed as we expect the court verdict in our favour,” said Chitta Ranjan Mohanty, vice-principal, Kendrapara Autonomous College.