- Not a single house constructed in 2 years under Sardar Awas Scheme, says govt
- Over 500 fishermen languishing in Pakistani jails
NE NEWS SERVICE
GANDHINAGAR, MARCH 16
The Gujarat government has cracked a whip on encroachers who have grabbed government and private land in the state using forged documents and tampering land records.
Government officials close to the development said that the authorities have lodged 586 first information reports (FIRs) involving 2256 people after the enactment of the anti-land grabbing Act in the state assembly last year. Charge sheets have been filed in 336 cases, they said.
In the state assembly, Gujarat revenue minister Rajendra Trivedi said on Friday that a total of 12,342 complaints related to land grabbing of almost 1014 hectare of private land were received, of which 818 complaints were found to be genuine.
According to the revenue minister, the government has succeeded in freeing private land worth ₹1,075 crore from the mafias who illegally occupied them.
In the case of government-owned land, 499 complaints have been received of land grabbing incidents. The total area of such illegally occupied land will be about 695 hectare, he said.
Not a single house constructed in 2 years under Sardar Awas Scheme, says govt
Neither a single house was constructed nor a rupee allocated under Sardar Awas Scheme in the last two years in Gujarat, the state Assembly was informed on Wednesday.
The information was provided by Panchayat, Rural Housing, Rural Development department minister Arjunsinh Chauhan in reply to a series of questions by Congress members.
Against the unit cost of a new house of Rs 1 lakh, the state government provided Rs 40,000 to the beneficiary, he said.
The state has provisioned Rs 98 lakhs for the next fiscal for the Sardar Awas Yojna and in the current year 2021-22, Rs 1.4 crore was provisioned for the entire state for the scheme, out of which Rs 32.45 lakh was shown as utilised.
In a written reply to a question, the minister also informed that the state had utilised Rs 352.36 lakhs on the amount allotted for the interest paid on the central provident fund and also for the leave salary and gratuity of the board. The government had also allocated Rs 1,000 crore as revolving fund.
Compared to the Sardar Awas scheme, the state government spent a sizeable amount in the housing construction under the PM Awas Yojna.
While replying to a couple of questions, the minister informed that the department had allocated and disbursed a total of Rs 6.47 crore for 2,225 units built in the Kutch district under the PMAY.
The department had also sanctioned a total of 8,911 PMAY units in the Dahod district in two years, while 4,050 units were constructed in 2020-21.
Over 500 fishermen languishing in Pakistani jails
Over 500 fishermen from Gujarat are still languishing in Pakistani jails as on December 2021, the Gujarat government disclosed in the Assembly during the ongoing Budget session on Wednesday.
Replying to a written question by Congress MLA Punja Vansh, state Fisheries Minister Brijesh Merja informed the House that a total of 519 fishermen from the state are languishing in Pakistani jails. As on December 31, 2021, 519 fishermen from Gujarat were in Pakistani jails, of which, 358 were arrested in the last two years — 163 in 2020 and 195 in 2021 — Merja said.
The minister informed that the government is making efforts to get these fishermen released, and has submitted the required documentary proof to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for further action after verification of their nationality.
In a related question, the minister said that the government has extended Rs 6.58 crore financial assistance to the fishermen’s families.
These fishermen from districts like Porbandar, Gir Somnath and Devbhumi Dwarka mistakenly cross the maritime border in the Arabian Aea and end up in Pakistani jails, the House was informed. The state government has been conducting awareness programmes and also assisting fishermen in setting up GPS to alert them when they come near the IMBL, the minister informed. The government also said that in the last two years, the Gujarat government has written 18 times to release the fishermen from Pakistani jails.
