Lost and found — 113 acres of land the Bihar Tourism Dept didn’t know it owned  

The discovery, made while going through old communication with the state’s land and revenue department, came when the tourism department was conducting a special drive in order to identify and develop land that it owned, especially along national highways.

The state has been trying to make special efforts to boost its tourism sector.

“We had been visiting our communication with the land and revenue department over the last 30 years and assigned an officer for the purpose (when the discovery was made),” Bihar tourism minister Nitish Mishra said. “After this exercise, we got block and district-wise details of this land.”

Of the 113 acres, 49 came from Nalanda — the home district of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. This was followed by 22 acres in Saharsa, 13 acres in Munger, 12 acres in Vaishali, 9 acres in Bhagalpur, and 5 acres in West Champaran.

According to the minister, the tourism department faced some resistance from the public earlier this year while taking back possession of about 10 acres of land that had been “encroached” in Gaya. An FIR was registered against some farmers for obstructing government officials for doing their duty, Mishra said.

The department now plans to use this newly-discovered land to build tourist facilities along highways, one official said. Significantly, this also comes at a time when the Bihar government is creating a land bank of 5,000 acres to help attract investors to the state.

“We were very thrilled to trace out our land plot along the East-West Corridor in Supaul. We are going to develop it for travellers by providing facilities such as restaurants and washrooms. We also recovered a land plot near Punaura Dham (considered the birthplace of Hindu goddess Sita) in Sitamarhi. In most cases of land recovery, we have erected boundary walls,” he said.