Chandigarh, April 25: Punjab Rural Development and Panchayat Minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal on Monday ordered a probe into encroachments on all panchayat lands and launched a special drive across the state to remove encroachments from all panchayat lands. Chairing a high-level meeting with Additional deputy Commissioners and District Development and Panchayat Officers here, the Minister set a target of removing encroachments from 5,000 acres of panchayat land within a month by May 31, 2022 in the first phase under this special drive. The Minister also issued an order for videography to ensure open transparent annual auction of agriculture panchayat land from this year. He categorically said that strict action will be initiated against erring officials if anyone found involved in giving favours to a person during the auction process. Dhaliwal further directed to conduct an investigation to ascertain the drastically falling down of annual auction rates of some panchayat lands and said that action will be taken against the officials found responsible for it. He directed the officials to take swift action to install tubewells on the panchayat lands and district/block officials shall personally ensure completion of the process immaculately. Taking another significant decision, the Minister said, “All ongoing cases in DDPO courts shall be disposed of within three months and no case should remain pending afterwards,” adding that a departmental action should be initiated against officials for violation of this order. In order to make the state green, Dhaliwal also asked panchayat officials to plant 500 saplings in each village across the state. UNI
