Gujarat Govt8217;s sleeping over surplus ULC land could act to builders8217; advantage

After more than one year of the scrapping of the ULC Act by the State Assembly on March 30 last, the Government has, so far, held only one meeting, on June 16 this year, to discuss the possible uses of ULC land.

The high-level meeting, presided over by Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, tinkered with the idea of selling off plots of land, which were not under legal dispute, in posh areas and use the proceeds in housing for urban poor.

Even as hundreds of dispute cases involving the ULC are pending in the courts, these builders are moving in new cases, staking their claim on lands in possession of the Government. Right from getting vital land documents siphoned off from government offices, to using fake certificates, and simply encroaching on the lands, the builders are trying all tricks.

Of the total 88.10 lakh square metres of land available with the Government, 45 lakh-plus metres have been encroached upon and over 23 lakh metres are under litigation. Ahmedabad alone has encroachments on 28 lakh square metres of land, followed by Surat with 10 lakh metres and Rajkot with 2.45 lakh. The minimum encroachment is in Bhavnagar, on just 6,200 metres.

The recent controversy in Vadodara over a plot of land measuring 30,000 square metres, and a few other cases in Ahmedabad are just a case in point. In Vadodara, a group of people moved the court to stake their claim on the huge plot taken over by the Government under the ULC in Tarsali area long back.

When officials in the Vadodara District Collectorate searched for the Possession Receipts of the land, they were shocked to find them missing8217;. It was missing even with the Talati concerned. District Collector Anil Mukim swung into action and, through the ULC Collector, filed a police complaint. The officials later presented to the court other corroborative papers to state that the land indeed belonged to the government.

A senior Government official disclosed to The Indian Express that after the Tarsali case, 8220;the Collectorate and ULC officials checked out other cases only to find that there were at least nine cases in which some or the other important documents were missing8221; from Government records.

In some cases, in Ahmedabad, the builders got fake birth-certificates of their wards to claim that they were adults and could possess land which was declared surplues under ULC. In one such case, a person presented a school-leaving certificate of his son mentioning false birth-date, but the school does not exist. He also had a birth-certificate of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, which was found to be fake.

Official sources in the Revenue Department stated that after the Vadodara episode, the department has taken up computerisation of land records of all six urban agglomerations where the ULC was applied. Vital documents were also being scanned to ensure that there was no repeat of the Vadodara incident. ULC was applicable in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar cities.

8220;These are just a few instances; there are many such cases. And many other tricks being deployed by the builders. We are trying to detect the cases,8221; an official claimed. But he asserted that the Government would have to decide fast. Otherwise land sharks, in league with unscrupulous officials, would do whatever they can to grab the lands lying vacant.