Balasore: The district administration has removed encroachments on 60 acres of government land in Baliapal tehsil, which once used to produce 300MT of natural edible salt every year.

Police completed the eviction on Friday even though local residents, who had undertaken farming on the land, protested against it.

The protesters claimed that they had undertaken farming on getting land under sublease arrangement. Accusing the officials of illegal evictions, some of the evictees lodged an FIR against the tehsildar at Singla police station.

Secretary of Bolanga Industry Cooperative Society for Salt Production Amulya Kumar Mohanty said: "Around 327 acres of land was given by the government on lease to the society, yet some unscrupulous elements were using it for farming after the industry had closed. Since, they didn't vacate the land we had to evict them. Revival of the closed unit would generate employment and financial gain in the area. No sublease was given to anyone. All their claims are false," he said.

The state government had given the land on lease to the local salt producing society. The society was marketing its produce from 1970 till 1996. After the salt industry collapsed, some local residents took up farming on the land.

Baliapal tehsildar Basudev Mohapatra said the encroachers were evicted following the district collector's order and land handed over to the society.

"The lease for the land along the sea coast was given to the society for producing natural salt from the seawater. As the industry had closed, local people were illegally using it for farming. Though they had been served notices, they did not respond," said Mohapatra.

Recently, local MP R.K. Jena had raised the issue in Parliament seeking the Centre's help for the revival of the sick salt industry in Bolanga.

"Efforts are on to revive the salt industry in the area through a cooperative society. If salt industry cannot be revived, efforts would be made to set up an alternative industry," additional district magistrate Manas Ranjan Padhi said.

In the first week of March a four-member team of the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) visited Bolanga to revive the salt farming industry.

Since pre-Independence era Bolanga has been generating natural edible salt from the sea. About 500 families had been surviving by extracting salt for years. The state government had provided nearly 300 acres of land on lease for extracting salt. The introduction of iodised salt led to the winding up of the local industry.