Bengaluru: The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has directed Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPIs) of all 34 educational districts to take immediate steps to register land records in the names of schools at the local sub-registrar offices across the State in their respective jurisdiction.
The Director of Department of Public Instruction issued this order last week following directions from Principal Secretary of Department of Primary and Secondary Education and even from Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to ensure that land owned by schools and the government is protected.
Also, the DPI issued this order in the wake of public complaints it got on encroachment of school and other government land by land sharks in various villages, particularly in and around Bengaluru where its value is worth over crores of rupees an acre in the real estate market. Many philanthropists including well-known Kannada writers like Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar and landlords have donated their land to build school, colleges and educational institutions in their native places, but properties of various schools have not yet been registered due to the negligence of the department, local bodies and school authorities.
Of the 45,000 government run-primary and high schools across the State, a majority of the schools do not have land records of the property.
Of the total 1,522 government schools in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP limits) and Bengaluru Rural District, more than 600 schools do not have land ownership rights, according to a private suit filed by Bengaluru Rural Zilla Panchayat Health and Education Standing Committee chairman G.T. Narasimharmurthy in Bengaluru North and South Districts Magistrate Courts.
The local District Magistrate Courts have also directed the DPI to ensure that government land is protected following the private suit filed by G T. Narasimhamurthy.
A few years back, villagers of Gorur of Arkalgud taluk in Hassan district had alleged that the farmland donated by renowned Kannada writer late Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar to a government school at his native village Gorur was encroached by land grabbers. Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar had donated four acres and 38 guntas of land in 1958 to then Mysore Government to provide for financial succour to government Primary School at Gorur.
For many years, local farmers used to cultivate in the land donated to the school who shared their profits with school administration, but after some time they stopped sharing their returns all of a sudden and even went to the extent of claiming land ownership rights.
When department checked records, the RTC and other land records mention that the land donated by Ramaswamy belongs to the government.
