Puri: A few influential persons have set up fish enclosures on around 196 acres of Srimandir land under Gop tehsil illegally.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has launched a probe into the encroachment after receiving a complaint in this regard from a private individual.
As per the complaint, Srimandir has a 196.61 acre plot at Urali mouza under Gop tehsil. A few persons have been doing fish farming on the temple land illegally for the past several years.
A private individual from the Holy City had lodged complaints regarding the land encroachment with the SJTA chief administrator, Chief Minister, Vigilance department, Law department and Revenue department. He had also posted his complaint in social media, sources said.
“We have launched a probe into the land encroachment issue after receiving a complaint in this regard. Srimandir assistant settlement officer Alok Kumar Nag recently visited Urali to take stock of the situation. We will take appropriate action after receiving a report from Nag,” said SJTA administrator (revenue) Madhusudan Das.
Meanwhile, the temple administration has asked the Gop tehsildar to submit a detailed report regarding the status of the Srimandir land at Urali mouza.
It is worth mentioning that several influential people have set up illegal fish enclosures on government land under Gop tehsil. A few years ago, there were reports that an IPS officer had also encroached upon government land near Gop to do fish farming.
According to sources, the fish mafia has illegally acquired at least 18 acre of land of a Puri-based mutt at Urali mouza. Besides, another few persons have encroached upon 56 acre of government land under Gop tehsil for prawn farming, sources said.
“The district collector had directed tehsildars to reclaim all government plots from encroachers at a review meeting of the Revenue department a couple of months ago. However, tehsildars are very much reluctant to take action against the encroachers,” said a source in the district administration.
