Revenue Terminology ! Jammu and Kashmir...

Often We get confused when hear the words like Intikaab, Fard, Jamabandi, Gosha, Khata, Khewat and Khatoni. Since we don't understand the revenue terminology thus we have  remain dependent upon others to know what these words mean especially whenever we buy a piece of land.
Therefore in an attempt to provide you little bit of understanding of these words, a sincere effort has been made hope it would be useful for the readers.

Map entire land along banks of Tawi, identify encroachers for action: DB

Govt agencies unaware of extent of encroachments

Expresses concern over illegal extraction of minerals

11/08/2016/ Daily Excelsior

Mohinder Verma

JAMMU, Aug 10: Observing that all the concerned Government agencies are unaware of the extent of encroachments along the banks of River Tawi despite the situation having assumed alarming proportion, the Division Bench of State High Court comprising Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice B S Walia has directed for mapping of entire land along the banks of sacred river right from Nagrota to Phallian Mandal and then identification of encroachers for initiating stern action including demolition of unauthorised constructions.

These directions have been passed in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by practising lawyer Diwakar Sharma and RTI practitioner Raman Sharma, founding members of “Save My Tawi Campaign” highlighting the plight of River Tawi because of encroachments, illegal extraction of minor mineral and uninterrupted flow of sewage water.

“It seems that the concerned Governmental agencies are completely unaware of the extent of encroachments on the banks of River Tawi. Moreover, confusion prevails as to which agency or department has to ensure that there is no encroachment and which department should have controlled and regulated the land along the banks”, the Division Bench observed in the open court, adding “this is mainly because no serious efforts were made in this direction and the concerned agencies always tried to pass buck on each other”.

Stating that encroachments that have taken place over the years and may be continuing on account of negligence or with the connivance of the official respondents are required to be dealt with seriously, the DB said, “first of all the official respondents must identify as to what exactly is the area, which forms part of River Tawi or its banks, which otherwise should have been controlled and regulated by the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, Forest Department and other Governmental agencies”.

“Once the extent of area is identified and property mapped, it would then be easy for the respondents to immediately act to demolish any unauthorised construction or encroachment or to prevent such an encroachment in future”, the DB said and directed the Divisional Commissioner, Jammu to constitute a committee of officers from Revenue, Irrigation and Flood Control and Forest Departments, Jammu Municipal Corporation, Jammu Development Authority and Nazool to identify and map the entire land along the banks of River Tawi from Nagrota to Phallian Mandal.

After mapping the entire land, the committee shall identify the encroachers, the extent of encroachments made by them, the nature of encroachment or construction raised by them and the time when the encroachment had taken place and thereafter necessary steps shall be taken for removing the encroachment, the DB further directed.

Pointing towards the status report dated July 22, 2015, the DB directed that a comprehensive report shall be filed by the respondents reflecting the steps taken to evict the encroachers whose names were mentioned in the status report. “Failure on the part of the concerned authorities in this regard would make them liable for action”, the DB made it clear.

In order to prevent encroachments in future, the DB has issued directions for preparation of record of satellite imagery of the entire area on fortnightly basis for examination of all the concerned authorities. “This will facilitate the concerned departments to ascertain whether any fresh attempt has been made to encroach upon the river banks”, the DB added.

Taking serious note of failure of the Jammu Municipal Corporation to initiate necessary steps to check pollution of river Tawi, the DB said, “the Corporation shall file a detailed affidavit reflecting the steps taken to prevent the free flow of sewage water from the city into the river as also the steps taken to prevent dumping of municipal waste on the river banks”.

Referring to the argument of the counsel for the petitioner that there was large scale extraction of minor minerals like sand, bajri etc from the Tawi bed without there being any effective mechanism to monitor the same, the DB observed, “the court has been informed that sand mafia was permitted to have a free hand on extraction of these minor minerals”.

On this, the Mining Officer, who was present in the court, drew the attention of DB towards SRO 133 dated April 20, 2016 which reads: “As a transitory measure and in order to ensure uninterrupted supply of minor mineral to the consumers, the department may issue permission valid up to July 31, 2016 for extraction of minor mineral to any existing quarry holder or to any person extracting such minor minerals or for transportation of such minerals on royalty basis”.

“From the statement of the Mining Officer it appears that there is no regulation on extraction of minor minerals, which goes on throughout the night including its transportation”, the DB observed, adding “admittedly none of the officers of the Geology and Mining Department is present at night to check as to whether extraction of minor minerals is taking place from the designated spots/blocks according to the prescribed coordinates or not”.

Accordingly, the DB directed Commissioner Secretary, Geology and Mining Department and SSP Jammu to file comprehensive and detailed affidavits as to how they propose to check the menace of illegal extraction of minor minerals from Tawi bed so that there is no loss of revenue to the Government on account of non-payment of royalty by those involved in extraction of such minor minerals and the extraction is permitted only from the designated blocks.

Poor implementation of MGNREGA in J & K

J & K Govt  Owes Several Crores Liability towards  MGNREGA Labourers

Raman Sharma

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, MGNREGA or formerly called as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, NREGA was passed by the parliament in year 2005 and received the assent of the president on 05 September 2005.

The preamble of the act makes the intention of the government and the law-makers clear wherein it says “ An Act to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do .Un-Skilled manual work and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”.

The law had been brought to provide at least 100 days guaranteed job to every rural household everywhere in the country except  Jammu and Kashmir.

Section 1 (2) of the principal act, like many other laws passed by  the parliament of India made it clear that  this act was also not applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.  

Therefore initially the rural population of the state was deprived of the 100 days guaranteed job works, but after witnessing huge response from masses and success of the act in other parts of the country, in the year 2007, an amendment was made in the  act to enable and extend the provisions of the law in our state state, and in may-2007 the parliament vide a new legislation known as  National Rural Employment Guarantee (Extension to Jammu and Kashmir) Act, 2007 extended the law here as well.

As the preamble makes it clear that the only aim of this law is to ensure guaranteed wage employment to the rural population and to be honest in Jammu and Kashmir also this law has provided uninterrupted and on demanded wage employment to the  households in the villages.

One main reason for the huge success of this act had remained the strict time schedule for every stage and provision of compensation to the applicant (villager) if the competent authority fails to follow the time schedule.  

As per the provision of the law, any major person of a rural household can apply to the competent authority seeking unskilled guaranteed job of 100 days in an year and once the application is submitted seeking job, the competent authority shall have to provide either job within 15 days or give unemployment allowance to the card holder.

Since this act deals with most vulnerable class of the society therefore the enabling provisions of the law are pro-poor. As per the act, the payment should be made to the worker within 15 days and in case of delay in releasing wages there is also a provision for compensation to the worker  under payment of wages act.

Different state governments have fixed different wage rates depending upon their minimum wages law and   financial resources and Jammu and Kashmir State is amongst those states that provide minimum wages, we are  just ahead of Bihar , Jharkhad, Chattisgarh where the minimum fixed wage to MGNRGA workers is Rs 167/day, Nagaland, Tripura and  Arunachal that provides minimum wage of Rs. 172/Day. In Jammu and Kashmir the fixed wage for MGREGA works is Rs. 173/Day, that is too low even if compared with our neighbouring state like Punjab (Rs. 208/Day)  Haryana (Rs. 259/Day) or even Himachal that gives Rs. 213/Day wage to its workers under MGNREGA.

The most unfortunate part in proper implementation of MGNREGA in Jammu and Kashmir is not only of giving meagre wage of amounting Rs 173 per day but the delay even in paying such meagre wage to the workers.

Yes, as per information provided under Right to Information Act ( which is available with this scribe) by the different blocks and district officers of the Rural Development department the officers have even given figures which in many cases  runs in Crores of rupees wherein they have confessed that the government owes a huge liability as cost of labour and material against the works done under the MGNREG Act.

In  all the 22 districts of the state, be it panchayats of Kashmir Valley, Jammu or Leh there is pending liability of labour wages.

It is not only aberrant and astonishing but shameful and sinful also that poor villagers who have volunteered their manual services are deprived of their legal wages, both the state and central government must bear the blame for this inordinate delay.

During the last 2 financial years the government of India have curtailed the amount of money given under MGNREGA to the J & K government, in the year 2015-16 the union government gave Rs. 55801.83 Lacs, in the year 2014-15 the figure was Rs 52171.08, whereas in the year 2013-14 the state government received MGNREGA funds of Rs. 60315.73 Lacs and in it was  Rs 76276.16 Lacs in year 2012-13.

The poor villagers are feeling helpless and running pillar to post to get their wages, neither the Block Development Officers nor the District Panchayat Officers are giving any satisfactory  reply to these helpless citizens  and in absence of the institution of Ombudsman, these victims of government’s apathy are at the verge of starvation.

After the completion of the terms of panchayats, the ray of hope for these villagers have further diminished as now the officers are not giving any sort of information or assurance to them.

What an irony that the citizens of that state are made to keep waiting for months to get even their due wages of Rs. 173/day where their own elected law makers MLAs and MLCs irrespective of political affiliation themselves decide to double their salaries and allowances without any consultation with the citizenry.

It would have been appreciated that if these honourable elected members of the legislatures had also shown similar courtesy to ensure timely release of the wages of these hard working citizens who had volunteered their manual services for their livelihood. About  Author: Raman Sharma is an  RTI Activist from Jammu and can be reached [a] jkrtiact@gmail.com, 9796811012.