43,000 sq yards of government land encroached

HYDERABAD: District officials have started serving notices to many persons who have allegededly encroached government lands but still applied for a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) to claim ownership of the land. Sources in the Hyderabad collectorate said in the last several months they received nearly 150 applications requesting revenue officials to issue NOCs for the land under their possession. But during scrutiny of the applications, officials found the applicants had encroached government lands.“It was found the total extent of government land under possession of encroachers was found to be 43,000 sq yards. We have prepared mandal-wise data and directions given to all Mandal Revenue Officers (MROs) to take action and reclaim the encroached land,” officials said. Usually, the NOC is given by revenue officials to declare the said land is not government land. “The idea of these applicants for getting the NOC was to fool revenue officials and convert government land into private property,” an official added. In a recent meeting conducted by the collector Natarajan Gulzar, directions were given to all MROs to either issue notices to applicants or acquire the encroached land. Officials also found that in most cases, the encroachers had already constructed buildings, so the former found it difficult to initiate action. It is learnt that officials are mooting the idea of giving option to encroachers to get their property regularised under GO 166.