Kolkata, July 31 (IANS) The West Bengal Land and Land Revenue Department has decided to conduct a thorough review of the current utilisation status of land given on leasehold to private entities during the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress regime.
An insider from the state department said that the thorough review of the current utilisation status of such leasehold land is being done basically for two purposes.
“The first is whether the land taken on leasehold during the previous regime has been utilised for the projects for which the lease was granted or whether the land has been left unused for a long time. In case of total non-utilisation of the land for the project it was being taken for, the state government might take back the land from the individual or entity to whom the land was given on leasehold, so that the same land could be allotted to any other party for industrial project purposes,” said a senior officer from the department.
However, in case of partial utilisation, the state government might seek clarification on when the project for which the land was taken on leasehold would be implemented on a case-to-case basis and, if necessary, might even set a realistic deadline for that purpose.
The second purpose of the land utilisation status review is to check whether the land was used for industrial projects for which it was given on leasehold or had been utilised for any non-scheduled purpose without prior permission from the competent authority.
“In this case, clarification would be sought from the individual or entity to whom the land was given on why that land was utilised for a non-scheduled purpose. Thereafter, the state government will evaluate such cases and consider imposing a financial penalty and even cancellation of the lease,” the state government official said.
It came to the notice of the state government that there had been several instances of land given on leasehold being either unutilised or partially utilised for a prolonged period or utilised for non-scheduled purposes.
Recently, the West Bengal government has adopted a “direct land-purchase” policy, wherein the state government directly purchases land from the landowners concerned and subsequently transfers the purchased land for infrastructure or industrial projects for which it had been purchased.
“At the same time, the state government has also decided to utilise the land parcels held by closed industries or unused leasehold land parcels for the same purpose. The review of the utilisation status of land parcels given on leasehold during the previous regime is the first step on this count,” the department officer said.
–IANS
src/dpb
