People’s Alliance for Peace and Progress Manipur (PAPPM) has organised a protest against the encroachments of public and government land in front of Kangla Gate today. More than 100 members of PAPPM shouted slogans showing support to the stand of CM N Biren Singh decision to expel the encroachers from State land and Reserve Forest areas.
In Manipur, some individuals and private organisations with vested interest are encroaching the public and government lands. They have been trespassing the properties of government since a long time. The common people are suffering due to their selfishness. PAPPM firmly believes that such encroachment of public land must be stopped immediately in the interest of the people.
Parking problems in Imphal city is a burning issue , even drains and roads are water-clogged if it rains for few hours. Public lands are often encroached and there are no enough space for drains to solve the water-clogged roads. Rampart deforestation of reserve forest areas by people living at the vicinity of the forest are causing floods frequently. And when we need water the most, it is drought where we could not manage water for our daily needs. Our water bodies are also depleted or about to extinct. We see several new villages in these water bodies.
Every year, we saw scuffles between government and encroachers. The illegal encroachers of government lands are creating lot of problems in the past, it will continue in the future as well. These people will tarnish the efforts of the government in a different communal tone. They will even drag religion into the eviction of encroachers.
PAPPM President M Bobby Meetei warned that Private companies and individual should refrain from encroaching the government land. If these individual tries to occupy the government lands, they should be checked immediately and punitive measures must be taken up to them. Since the last 2-3 decades, public lands are freely encroached by individuals, where they establish new villages, infrastructures, even renaming the places etc.
He concludes that, if we fail to stand together against these encroachers,the future generations won’t witness any development changes, rather it will cause hindrance to the policies and plans of the government. We won’t be able to preserve the natural resources and environments. Our state will face myriad of problems in the days to come.
PAPPM is also happy to see to the political will of the present government’s stand on safeguarding and protecting the public land for the future generations. People must come forward to support the its stand on protecting the state land to be used for the benefits of people.
In short, PAPPM lays down two points for the protection and preservation of public lands. The government must identify those encroached lands and carry out the eviction drives immediately. The second point is to utilise these encroached lands for the welfare of common people.