Recovered land given to Forest Department

CHENNAI: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday handed over to the Forest Department a huge extent of lands in Gudalur taluk in Nilgiris, which were encroached by private parties. So far, 11,204 acres of forest lands have been recovered on the initiative taken by the CM and handed over to the Forest department for good maintenance. The CM formalised the take-over of lands through video-conferencing at the Secretariat.The Supreme Court, in its verdict dated September 9, 2010, declared that the State’s decision to recover this huge extent of fertile land in possession of private parties for many years was legally valid.  However, the previous regime had not taken any steps to retrieve the land.  After this government assumed office, land survey was made in June and on August 11, the collector notified that these lands were recovered.New MethodThe CM, on Tuesday, introduced a new system for disposing of the petitions received during grievances redress day of the District Collectors. At present, on every Monday, over 10,000 petitions are being received.  Most of them are relating to house pattas, ration cards, drinking water facility, old age pension etc.As per the system introduced by the Chief Minister, hereafter, all petitions would be computerised and a separate number would be given to each petition along with an acknowledgement and a deadline fixed for disposal.  If the reply to the petitioner is not satisfactory, the petitions would be resent to the offices concerned.