Prime land worth crores taken into possession by strong willed forest officers
By Amrit Sidhu Brar
Patiala, 3 April 2021
In a remarkable achievement and well organised action, the Punjab forest department led by its DFO Vidhiya Sagri IFS has got about 43 acres of forest land cleared from illegal possession in 3 villages, Village Nain Kalan, Naina Kurdh and Asmanpur. The land was under unauthorised occupancy since long. The high value land is worth crores of rupees.
The Land under unauthorized occupancy was part of Bir Kullemajra, Protected Block Forest notified in 1961. After a 50 years long legal battle from lower court to high court, Today a Joint digital demarcation was carried out by Forest Department, revenue department with the help of Police Department and the Possession was handed over to the Forest department by the revenue department.
The Department has been consistently pursuing the case with concerned departments and warrant of Possession was issued by SDM Patiala dated 24.03.2022 and further Possession was handed over by Revenue Department to forest Department today. This was disclosed DFO Vidhiya Sagari IFS.
Forest officer Vidhiya Sagari further said “The Land will now be brought under the Forest cover planting Indigenous Native trees to improve the ecosystem services of the land and will add on to the forest cover further restoring the Biodiversity”.
It may be recalled here that forest department led by high profile officers Additional Chief Secretary Seema Jain IAS, Principle Chief Conservator of Forest Praveen Kumar IFS and others are vigorously working to get the possession of forest lands under unauthorised occupancy.
