Chadoora, Oct 07 (KNS): Constructing illegal and unplanned commercial roads on paddy fields in several villages of Chadoora T

ehsil go unabated due to lackadaisical attitude of the revenue department.

In Dooniwari village of Chadoora tehsil of Budgam district, property dealers and land mafias pool their money into unlawful construction of commercial roads in paddy fields. Where farmers feel helplessness and are forced to accept the terms and conditions of these land mafias.

However, the locals blame the revenue department for its lackadaisical attitude towards the matter, which paves way for the property dealer to turn agricultural land into illegal and unplanned roads.

"Due to these roads the rates go up manifold and make it easy for land brokers to gain more profits, '' Mohammad Ramzan, a local farmer.

"The matter goes unnoticed due to officials' apathy and there is a close nexus between revenue officials and land brokers", he added.

Another farmer, Mohammad Shafi says, "Nearby villages like Kralpora and Chattergam and several others have the same problem, where commercial roads were constructed and later turned into residential colonies".

"This doesn't only disfigure the agricultural landscape, but adds numbers to the shrinking agricultural land database of the Government", Mudasir, student.

Revenue officials have miserably failed to control the illegal conversion of paddy land into commercial roads. We appeal to the LG administration to look into the matter at an earliest, he added.

According to the official revelation, Kashmir had a total of 4, 67,700 hectares of agricultural land in 2015, which shrunk to 3, 89,000 hectares in 2019.

In 2019 an official assessment says that the Valley did lose about twenty percent of its agricultural land in just four years – from 2015 to 2019.