PURI: After a long legal battle, the State Government on Saturday could get back over 1,000 acres of prime land along the beach.The settlement officer of the land in its order restored the title of 1,301 acres of land in favour of the government that was illegally occupied by some persons a decade back. Touted as the largest land scam in the State, the land price was estimated at over Rs 1,000 crore. Sources said 66 persons, including some businessmen and bureaucrats, had illegally recorded 2,869 acres of government land in their names during the consolidation process. A report carried in these columns had then stated that the land belonged to government as per the 1927 Land Settlement records. The then district collector had then directed the ASO (Technical) to file a petition in the Court of Commissioner of Land Consolidation. The officials concerned, however, sat over the petition for several years till media reports again castigated the administration for helping the land sharks. After much hue and cry, the State Government had asked the RDC (central) to conduct a thorough probe into it. S C Mahapatra, the then RDC, had asked the settlement officer of the land to ascertain the number of landowners and initiate fresh hearing. Accordingly, after hearing - that went on for years together - eight cases relating to one Gadadhar Pushpalak and his family members was disposed of by the settlement officer-cum-deputy secretary, Revenue, Nihar Ranjan Mohanty. Sources said the land has dense casurina forest worth a Rs 100 crore.With this, the Samuka project, an international tourism promotion project of the government, is likely to get a boost as it has been delayed by a decade for want of land. Earlier, the State Government had won the title of 500 acres of land along the Puri-Konark marine drive road from the Apex Court and took possession. It is learnt that thousands of acres of government land have been illegally recorded in favour of private persons.
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