Bangalore:Land grabbers have encroached about 5,000 acres of land in tank bed areas in Bangalore city and the government has decided to evict them, Karnataka Minister for Minor Irrigation Govind Karjol said today.

It had been estimated that the value of the encroached land at the prevailing market rates would be around Rs 50,000 crore, he told the press here.

Karjol said a high level meeting of officials from Revenue, Forest and Home has been convened here on September 4 to discuss the issue and the steps to be initiated to free the encroachments.

The government had plans to set up a task force to clear tank bed encroachments, he said.

The city had 72 tanks and the government had so far conducted survey to find out the extent of encroachments in 15 tanks and in the remaining the process was underway.

On minor irrigation department, he said the government would be creating irrigation potential in about 50,000 acres this year.

In the first phase, a total of 2005 tanks in ten districts had been desilted and in the second phase the work on 1,225 tanks invovling an expenditure of Rs 240 crore would be taken up this year, he said.
Source : PTI