Greater Kashmir: Srinagar: Tuesday,
March 28, 2017.
Despite
several laws being in place, there is no end to conversion of agriculture land
into commercial Kashmir. As many as 152 Cellular Network Towers have been
constructed on agriculture land in Ganderbal, Srinagar and Baramulla districts.
This has been
revealed in reply to an RTI application filed by Advocate Hakeem Shabir Ahmad
regarding information of mobile towers erected on agriculture land in Kashmir
division. The reply has been given by office of the Public Information Officer,
Directorate of Agriculture Kashmir.
The reply
reads that 152 Cellular Network Towers have been constructed on agriculture
land in Ganderbal, Baramulla and Srinagar districts.
The reply
reveals that Government owned BSNL has constructed 37, Airtel 51, Aircel 35,
Reliance 16, Vodafone nine, Idea three and Jio one such towers.
The
Agricultural Department says they have nothing to do with the granting of
permission for erection of Towers or to maintain any sort of records with
respect to these towers. “The information pertains to the revenue department as
all sort of legislation lies with revenue department,” said the reply adding
that they have to conduct the girdawari of the land where the establishment of
Towers can be carried out.
“As such the
information can be obtained from the Revenue department,” it said. “It is pertinent
to mention that this office is only supposed to transfer the latest technology
of the agriculture to the farming community and to take the measure to increase
the production and productivity of agriculture crops.”
Pertinently,
the construction of hotels, shopping malls and residential houses on
agricultural land is unabated in Kashmir in absence of any monitoring body to
keep check on conversion of agricultural land.
As per
Agriculture department figures, two lakh kanals of agriculture land of the net
sown or cultivated area of 3.5 lakh hectare has been converted for commercial
and other purposes in Kashmir over the years.
A high-level
official committee constituted by the government in 2009 to report on master
plan violations, had identified and compiled a comprehensive report of around
2500 illegal structures in the Srinagar city alone. “Most of these
constructions were made on agricultural land. Government succumbed to the
pressure of these influential people and shelved the report without taking any
action on it,” said a revenue official.
It has been seen that most of the agricultural land has been converted into
non-agricultural purposes on the outskirts of Srinagar and rural areas of
Kashmir.
The High
Court had pulled up the state government several times and directed the
authorities to ensure that no conversion of agricultural land is allowed for
commercial, residential and industrial purposes. However, sources said the
authorities had failed to follow the directions of the court. Agriculture is
the prime source of the state income as around 70 percent of the population is
directly or indirectly involved with it.
The Economic
Survey Report has also portrayed a grim picture of conversion of agricultural
land, saying it is happening “at an alarming rate” and leading to further
dependence of food on imports from outside the state.
As per the
report, the arable land in J&K has shrunk from 0.14 hectare per-person in
1981 to 0.08 hectare per-person in 2001 and further to 0.06 hectare per-person
in 2012.
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