Entangled in land ownership is the proposed Malwa canal project

There is a significant obstacle in the way of the state government’s plan to build the Malwa canal along the Rajasthan Feeder Canal on vacant land in the districts of Ferozepur, Faridkot, and Muktsar.

Upon starting the task of locating property for the 170-kilometer-long and 72-foot-wide canal, the Irrigation Department discovered that the Rajasthan Government’s acquisition of the land did not reflect a change in ownership in the revenue record. The farmers who sold it to Rajasthan still own it.

In order to build the Rajasthan Feeder Canal, the Rajasthani government bought more than two lakh acres of farmland in southwest Punjab in the 1950s. The canal takes up around 65,000 acres, of which 1.35 lakh acres remain unutilized.

The land is still listed in the names of the farmers who sold it to the Rajasthan in the 1950s, according to the revenue record in Faridkot, despite the state government’s desire to utilize it for the construction of the Malwa canal and the Rajasthan government’s agreement for its use.

The state irrigation department has been asked by the irrigation department to change the ownership of this land to its name in the mutation register of the revenue record. However, revenue officials in Faridkot are finding it difficult to accomplish this because there isn’t a revenue record for this land.

In order to build the about 170-kilometer-long Malwa canal, the Irrigation Department had requested a strip of land that was around 72 feet wide along the Rajasthan canal, extending from Hari Ke Barrage in Ferozepur to Warring Khera in Malout.

There were several instances of deception in this region when numerous people reportedly sold this property in accordance with the revenue record since the ownership of the land was not altered in the revenue record throughout these years.

Since the bureaucrat’s name was listed in the revenue record’s ownership column, a criminal case was filed against a retired IAS officer who was accused of selling a portion of the land on the Kotkapura-Talwandi bypass in Faridkot to real estate brokers in January 2010 with the help of some revenue officials.

In the 1950s, Rajasthan purchased land from farmers; nonetheless, there hasn’t been any mutation.

In order to build the Rajasthan Feeder Canal, the Rajasthani government bought more than two lakh acres of farmland in southwest Punjab in the 1950s. The canal takes up around 65,000 acres, of which 1.35 lakh acres remain unutilized.
The land is still listed in the names of the farmers who sold it to the Rajasthan in the 1950s, according to the revenue record in Faridkot, despite the state government’s desire to utilize it for the construction of the Malwa canal and Rajasthan’s agreement for its use.