Bangalore: Taking a tough line on the issue of illegal encroachments, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Thursday announced the setting up of a high-level enforcement cell to recover 18,000 acres of prime government land that has been encroached upon in Bangalore. An Ordinance for setting up the cell would be promulgated in a few days.

The cell would be headed by Principal Secretary (Revenue) S.M. Jamadar, and he would be assisted by an IAS officer and four KAS officers. They would be assisted by a special task force, to be headed by a senior IPS officer, and a legal cell comprising four advocates.

Speaking to presspersons after reviewing the work of several departments, the Chief Minister said that officers with impeccable integrity and efficiency had been selected for the job of recovering the land currently in the hands of powerful land-grabbers. The value of the land was estimated at over Rs.25,000 crore. This was a follow-up measure on the interim report of the legislature committee headed by A.T. Ramaswamy that had identified 13,614 acres.

Mr. Kumaraswamy announced prize money ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs.1 lakh to informants and assured that the names of whistleblowers would be kept a secret. He declared that the cell would not spare anybody however powerful they may be. It would start work in the first week of January and complete the task in four months. He said the Government expected a revenue of Rs. 15,000 crore by auctioning the land and a part of the proceeds would be utilised for waiving farmers' loans.

Special court

The Chief Minister said that the Law Department had requested the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Cyriac Joseph to set up a special court for the speedy disposal of government land disputes. A voluntary disclosure scheme was also announced by him, but the details of it would be worked by the cell. But he made it clear that the lands earmarked for public causes would not be parted at all.

The Chief Minister said that the income generated after auctioning these lands would be spent for development of infrastructure around Bangalore and other rural areas. He said that the BDA and the BMP could also initiate measures to recover the leased lands, if the lease period had expired. The officials had been instructed to look into the encroachment of the prime government land neighbouring the Karnataka Public Service Commission on Palace Road where a hotel had been built.

Asked whether he would be able to take on the mighty land mafia, Mr. Kumaraswamy admitted that it was a challenging task. He cited the case of government land in Basaveshvaranagar used for commercial purposes.

The Chief Minister said that the Government would turn to other important cities such as Mysore, Belgaum and Hubli-Dharwad after completing the recovery of land around Bangalore.

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