Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today announced to constitute a high-powered committee, headed by Financial Commissioner (Revenue), to take stock of situation arising out of High Court order to remove all encroachments on forest and other government lands.
Making a suo moto statement in the Assembly, Singh said that while the government recognises that illegal encroachments have to be proceeded against, there was also a human angle involved in the matter.
"We need to approach the whole issue with both legal and humane perspective and make distinction between those poor and landless persons who are occupying government land due to compulsion and those grabbing the government land out of greed," the Chief Minister said adding that the high-powered committee would address all these issues.
The Chief Minister said,"We may have to adopt different approaches for forest and non-forest land."
He said that recently there has been widespread debate and discussions in various public fora and media regarding the action being taken to vacate the government land which is under encroachments which include both revenue and forest land.
