By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, August 19, 2015 : The Naveen Patnaik government on Wednesday introduced the Odisha Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill, 2015 in the Assembly here making land grabbing a “cognizable” offence.

The state government had promulgated the Odisha Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Ordinance, 2015 on May 26 last after it received the President’s assent. The Bill provides for imprisonment ranging between one to seven years for offences under it, besides penalty against offenders.

Forest and environment and parliamentary affairs minister Bikram Keshari Arukh on behalf of revenue minister Bijoyshree Routray tabled the Bill in the House. The Bill is likely to be taken up for debate during the current session of the State Assembly.

The state government had created a special cell to indentify government land encroached upon. It found hundreds of acres being grabbed for several years. The special cell had recovered part of the grabbed land through judicial intervention. By June last year, over 45,000 acres land is encroached either by groups or by individual, sources in the revenue department said.

However, the government decided to bring the Bill to ensure that any individual or group illegally occupying government land, trying to sell it or illegally doing construction work on it will be punished under the Bill once it becomes an Act.

The Bill provides for setting up of special courts which will have the status of ‘civil court’ to deal with the menace of land grabbing.