Govt moves to repair seed stores, recover land

Rezaul Karim | Published: November 02, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

The government has moved to repair about 2600 seed stores across the country that have become dilapidated due to lack of maintenance as well as to recover grabbed land, official sources said.
The ministry is taking steps to recover seed stores or lands grabbed by dishonest persons for lack of preservation of necessary documents, sources said.
The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) under the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) maintains about 4000 union seed stores, built between 1960 and 1962.
Later, some 1402 out of 4000 seed stores were converted into office cum residence for deputy assistant agriculture officials but most of the stores have remained abandoned till date, ministry sources said.
As the documents including deeds and copies of gazette notifications were not properly preserved in the offices concerned, disputes have arisen over the ownership of the lands for most of the seed stores, sources said.Â Â Â
Most of the lands of these stores were obtained by land acquisition. Some were purchased or received as donation.
Â The MoA has taken up a repair programme for using these seed stores again, a ministry letter issued on October 22 said. Â
"The union seed stores were built from 1960 to 1962. These were not properly maintained. As result, most of these are not usable now. So the government has taken a move to repair these stores," Anwar Faruque, additional secretary and Director General (Seed) of the ministry told the FE.
The government has also decided to take initiatives to recover grabbed lands of the agencies under the ministry of agriculture (MoA), official sources said. The ministry sent a letter late last month to the deputy commissioners (DCs) and chief of the agencies to take necessary steps to recover grabbed lands.
The MoA directed all the DCs and head of departments to take steps for correction of the records of the Agriculture Extension Department (DAE) lands that were mistakenly recorded in DCs' personal names, the MoA order said.Â Â Â Â
The decision to recover grabbed lands was taken at a MoA co-ordination meeting held at the ministry last month.
Secretary in-charge of the ministry Dr S M Nazmul Islam said Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury has given 'special directives' to recover the dispossessed lands of its departments by taking necessary steps, the meeting's minutes made available to the FE, mentioned.
At present, some 15.5 acres of lands of the departments/agencies of the ministry remain encroached. The MoA has prepared a report in this connection. The ministry will go for punitive action against the grabbers after scrutinising the report, officials said.
"The government will be taking steps against the grabbers for recovering the ministry's lands. The MoA is working on it and will go for legal action against the offenders soon," official informed the FE Friday.
The ministry has already found enough evidence that a large mass of its lands have long been occupied illegally by a section of people as records were not being kept properly.
A number of persons have grabbed government lands showing the same as their own property by fabricating documents, sources said.
The MoA asked all its departments recently to follow properly the ministry's directives for keeping the government lands in possession so that these are not grabbed again.