Roshni Act

Why in news?

• The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Monday published on its website the list of beneficiaries under the Roshni Act.
• The beneficiaries include former State ministers, retired civil servants and politicians.

About Roshni Act:

• Jammu and Kashmir States Land (vesting of ownership to the occupants) Act, also known as Roshini Act was a land law in erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State.
• The Roshni Act envisaged the transfer of ownership rights of state land to its occupants, subject to the payment of a cost, as determined by the government.
• It was enacted by Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s government in 2000, and it set 1990 as the cut off for encroachment on state land.
• The government’s target was to earn Rs 25,000 crore by transferring 20 lakh kanals of state land to existing occupants against payment at market rates.
• The government said the revenue generated would be spent on commissioning hydroelectric power projects, hence the name “Roshni”.
• Under later amendments the cut off was relaxed further to 2007.
• The government also gave ownership rights of agricultural land to farmers occupying it for free, charging them only Rs 100 per kanal as documentation fee.

Why it was repealed?

• Investigations into the land transfers subsequently found that land in Gulmarg had been given over to ineligible beneficiaries.
• In 2009, the State Vigilance Organisation registered an FIR against several government officials for alleged criminal conspiracy to illegally possess and vest ownership of state land to occupants who did not satisfy criteria under the Roshni Act.
• The Comptroller and Auditor General, in a 2014 report, had stated that only ?76 crore had been realised from the transfer of encroached land between 2007 and 2013, as against the target of about ?25,000 crore.
• In November 2018, the High Court restrained all beneficiaries of the Roshni scheme from selling or carrying out any other transaction in respect of the land transferred to them.
• The J&K government on October 31, 2020 decided to declare all the actions taken under the Roshni Act, as “null and void”, and has decided to retrieve the land within six months.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Consider the following statements:
1.Hemis national park is located in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
2.Wular Lake located in Jammu and Kashmir is designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
Which among the above statements is/are correct?
(a)1 only 
(b)2 only 
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2

 Answer to prelims question