42% Land Of Lord Jagannath Encroached In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: About 42 per cent of the land of Lord Jagannath in Odisha has been encroached, said Law minister Pratap Jena in the Assembly on Tuesday.

Replying to a question by BJD member Ramesh Chandra Sai, the minister said out of a total of 60,426.943 acres of land in 24 districts, the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has the records of rights (RoR) of 34,803.013 acres of land, while the remaining 25,623 acres have encroached.

“The temple administration has filed 864 illegal encroachment cases to bring 151.465 acres of land under its possession in seven districts under section 16-A(1) of Shree Jagannath Temple Act-1955 while efforts are on to recover the remaining encroached land,” Jena added.

He also informed that a total of 395.252 acres of land of the Lord have been identified in six states of which 322.930 acres are in West Bengal, 17.020 acres in Andhra Pradesh, 28.218 acres in Maharashtra, 25.110 acres in Madhya Pradesh, 0.274 acres in Bihar and 1.700 acres in Chhattisgarh.