Jeeva, TNN, Nov 16, 2010,
CHENNAI: In April this year, revenue minister I Periyasamy told the Tamil Nadu Assembly that the government would take steps to retrieve the 4,000 acre of land encroached by various private educational institutions, but even today, his department remains hesitant to disclose the details of encroachments.
Only five taluk offices and one district collectorate from across the state chose to reply when TOI filed an appeal with the revenue department under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, seeking details about the encroachments. The appeal was filed in July after the revenue department rejected TOI's RTI application (filed soon after Periyasamy's assurance to the Assembly), saying disclosure of the information would amount to breach of privilege of the House.
According to the reply given by the taluk offices in Perundurai in Erode, Srivilliputhur in Virudhunagar, Polur in Tiruvannamalai, Sankarankoil in Tirunelveli, Natham in Dindigul and the Sivanganga district collectorate, as many as 49 educational institutions have encroached government lands since the past four to 50 years.
As per the replies, the institutions that have encroached government land are Kongu Engineering College (0.21.0 hectare), Rajiv Gandhi Polytechnic (0.02.0 hectare), MPN Nachimuthu Engineering College (0.38.0 hectare) at Perundurai Taluk in Erode ; Arulmigu Kalasalingam College, now deemed university (1,415.08 sq m) and Mangapuram Hindu Higher Secondary School (34,280 sq ft) at Srivilliputhur Taluk in Virudhunagar.
The encroachers also include Sri Ramajayam Educational Institution (0.21.0 hectare) ; Gopal Primary School (0.04.1 hectare) ; Elango Higher Secondary School (0.01.0 hectare) ; Pattiyandhal Primary School (0.01.0 hectare) at Polur Taluk in Tiruvannamalai ; Kalaivani Metriculation School (412 sq m) at Sankarankoil Taluk in Tirunelveli. The six replies were received on different days in October and November.
The Sivanganga district collectorate disclosed that 37 private educational institutions had encroached a total of 21.22.83 hectare government land under its jurisdiction, but did not name the institutions. Natham taluk office in Dindigul district said private educational institutions had encroached 0.08.5 hectare government land but again did not mention the institutions.
To a query on evicting the encroachers, Polur taluk office said no action was taken to remove them as there was no public objection to it. In their reply, Perundhurai taluk officials said the encroachments were going to be regularised on lease and hence they were not evicted.
Twenty-two more revenue offices from different districts responded to the RTI queries, but only to say that they had forwarded them to their subordinate offices and information would be given later. The taluk office in Ottanchattiram simply refused to furnish the details saying that the queries were related to other departments and "compilation of information would have an adverse impact on manpower" and hence the details could not be furnished under the RTI Act.
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