[ Bengia Ajum ]
ITANAGAR, 4 Aug: The Land Department of the Itanagar Capital Region (ICR) has informed that it does not have a comprehensive summary of the total land allotted to private individuals within the ICR.
As per RTI documents availed by environmentalist and lawyer SD Loda, the department said that some of the land records were either misplaced or “fragmented” during the shifting of office from Yupia to Naharlagun and then to the present location, Chandranagar, in Itanagar.
It added that the process of compiling such data requires extensive verification of old records and manual cross-checking, which it said is both time-consuming and resource-intensive. It was informed that the total area allotted to private individuals in the ICR cannot be finalized till the finalization of the cadastral map.
Also, the total area allotted to government departments in the ICR is 64 square kilometres, as per the notification issued on 17 October, 1981.
The department also does not have a record of the total area allotted to the state civil secretariat and the Assembly building. Further, it failed to provide land records of major government institutions, the status of available land within Itanagar city limits, and the details of the demarcation of government and private land allocations in the ICR. The department said that the reason for failure to provide these details is lack of finalization of the cadastral map.
Reacting to the failure of the department to provide crucial information, Loda said that this exposes the sorry state of affairs of the Land Department. “ICR is the heart of the state, and most important offices are located here. The Land Department is supposed to have all records with it. Lack of land records can hurt the development projects, too,” said Loda.
Earlier Loda, through RTI, disclosed that major government infrastructures like the civil secretariat and the state Assembly building were constructed without obtaining environmental clearance, even though they come under the notified Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary. As per the record, majority of land within the ICR falls under the Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary, due to which private individuals as well as government departments are not able to obtain land possession certificates.
