Land-bank: First step towards smart J&K
Displaying the name of the registered owner on every land should be made mandatory
Jammu, June 26: With J&K officially getting only one smart city the political as well as social circles are abuzz with fresh discussions on the viability of the smart city and more particularly waiting in wings for yet another row over the location of the city to be built.
While certain social and political quarters have already initiated animated discussions and so called demands for having the smart city according to their political and regional preferences nobody seems bothered about the fact that the corruption ridden state grappling with ever increasing clout of land mafia will be the main hindrance in building of such a city wherever the government initiates it.
Even as the central government does not seem to have learnt any lesson from the Central University, IIT, IIM and more recently AIIMS controversies allotting single Smart City might be the next headache for the coalition government in J&K.
However following the tradition of our positive approach we will discuss what should be done to prepare the state for building a Smart City as proposed.
The first and the foremost step towards that direction should be to end the land mafia ‘raaj’ in the state as it will be the greatest hurdles the coalition government will face while building a Smart City where crime and land disputes have no place.
In addition to the ongoing crackdown against land mafia the government must make mandatory for every citizen owning any land to display the name of the registered owner alongwith name and address and the registration details etc on a sign board to save people from indulging in fake land deals.
This step would allow any person to check the details in advance and also stop land grabbers from encroaching government or private land as all the details will be available for everyone to see.
Since land free from disputes and encroachments will be the prime requisite for the Smart City the government must instruct the Patwaris and Tehsildars to identify and digitize all the land records correctly and check the display boards so that corrective measures are taken without anyone having to complain later on.
The move should be based on the government style as the forest land and other government lands are fenced and identified through display boards so that people can known about the status of the land and inform the concerned authorities if anyone finds some mischief by the land mafia.
Another idea for saving and utilizing the barren and unused land can be by developing land banks where unused land belonging to any citizen can be taken over by the government to be allotted to those interested in cultivating the land and utilizing it for revenue generation and development. Such lands will remain with the owners but used by anybody who can make best use of it with the rent or part of royalty going to the owners.
This way the empty lands that lie unused for several years can be put to good use to generate revenue for development thus benefiting both the owners’ as well as the government.
These steps would start removing the bottlenecks created by the corruption and land mafia while massive encroachments would also be prevented.
Another initiative for the Smart City attitude can be initiated right now by making it mandatory for all the interviews of SSRB, JKPSC etc to be videographed and preserved so that anybody having any complaint can be cross checked without any long legal wrangles.
This step would also reduce corruption and bring forth the real talent of the students with little space for the influential people who literally buy the seats or the posts knowing well the long legal wrangles will not touch them anytime sooner.
Demanding a Smart City and actually preparing to build one are two different things; as they say it is easier said than done and hence we must start behaving and preparing ourselves for such a Smart City at the earliest rather than grappling with the harsh realities later on.