The Administrative Council which met here today, under the chairmanship of the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha approved the procedure for delineation and demarcation of Gair Mumkin Khads/ Daryas/ Nallahs which do not form a part of water channels but has been recorded in revenue records as such.
Farooq Khan and Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisors to the Lieutenant Governor, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary, J&K and Nitishwar Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor attended the meeting.
The approved procedure provides for Khasra-wise delineation by the internal departmental committees using GPS for generation of digital maps, conducting actual spot verification to establish desirable width of water course/channels especially in the proprietary lands, and removal of illegal encroachments on identified water courses through remedial action. The exercise will be conducted in a phased manner in districts of Jammu, Samba and Kathua in three months and remaining districts in one year.
The Administrative Council also approved constitution of a 3-tier committees to oversee the exercise at District, Division, and Union territory level, headed by the Deputy Commissioner, Divisional Commissioner, and Chief Secretary, respectively.
The District-level Committees will be mandated to conduct Khasra-wise survey of all lands recorded as Gair Mumkin Khads, Gair Mumkin Daryas, Gair Mumkin Nallahs etc. and prepare maps accordingly; delineate lands which do not form part of any water course/source or annual drainage system as per spot verification; to establish baseline for conducting the delineation exercise as per the status of the land in records of 2010, vis-a-vis status of the land with respect to the previous settlement of records, Misal Haqiat etc; and recommend and take remedial action for the illegal encroachments/ constructions actually obstructing the natural flow of water in the channel/course recorded as Gair Mumkin Khads, Gair Mumkin Daryas, Gair Mumkin Nallahs etc.
The committees at Divisional Level shall have a supervisory role and will closely monitor and review the exercise to resolve issues of coordination between two districts, inter departmental consultations and any other assistance which may be required by the district level committees. The progress will be reviewed by the UT Level Committee on a monthly basis.
The decision will give a major relief to the people who are suffering because of erroneous/misleading entries of such water bodies in their revenue records. This will put to an end lot of litigations pending in various courts besides allowing owners of such lands to transact and carry out various economic/non-economic activities allowed as per land use under the Master Plans of development/local areas.