DON’T LOSE GUARD
As the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has paved way for registrations and sale of Gair Mumkin Khad lands by disposing off the petitions challenging the sale of such land which was barred by order of Financial Commissioner Revenue, the responsibility of J&K government has been redoubled to ensure that taking refuge under the aforesaid provision granted by the court no entity in the UT of J&K indulges in actions which might prove detrimental to the environment as the issue is quite sensitive and involves natural water bodies of the region comprising significant part of the ecosystem and biodiversity. As was seen in many cases in the past in J&K, the unprincipled elements can make the court orders as an alibi to take undue advantage and can mar the environment cause thus making it essential for the concerned government agencies to shun smugness in the matter and remain vigilant that no one can misuse the provisions available to people in good faith. As the government had issued procedure for delineation, demarcation of lands which do not form part of any water course/source but have been recorded as Gair Mumkin Khad, Gair Mumkin Darya, Gair Mumkin Nallah, etc. in the revenue records, those involved in the exercise to demarcate the aforesaid types of land chunks should make it a point that the work accomplished by them should be upto the mark with no scope for any kind of errors in identifying the genuine water bodies. The government should also adopt it as a policy to make sure that wherever there is a scope to revive the water bodies described as Gair Mumkin Khad, Gair Mumkin Darya, Gair Mumkin Nallah, etc., sincere efforts must be taken to once again give life to the water resources which have been lost due to carelessness of the society in the past as everyone knows today the importance of water bodies and their impact on local biodiversity. The onus of sustaining local ecosystem and conserving environment though depends on all but the government cannot adopt let it go approach in the matter as overseeing each and every bit of this issue is its prime responsibility and therefore checks and counter checks are the need of the time in the matter or else people and the society as a whole will have to pay a big price for the lethargy and smugness.