The Mamata Banerjee government may have to tweak a policy on encroachment, framed six years ago, to implement its plan to sell off or lease out 1,000 acres of unused land owned by the Durgapur Projects Limited.

The need to bend the rules was felt on Thursday evening after Nabanna came to know that most of the unused land parcels had been encroached upon.

“The government wants to monetise unused land of the DPL. But the DPL authorities last evening (Thursday) said during a meeting at Nabanna that most of the unused plots had been encroached upon a few years ago. Now, we will look into how we can overcome the problem as there is a government policy against evicting encroachers from government land,” said a senior government official.

Sources said the DPL authorities informed the top government officials as well as power department officials that only 154 acres of land in the Bidhannagar area of Durgapur were free of encumbrances.

“Though nearly half of 3,759 acres of land owned by the DPL is lying unused on paper, right now only 154 acres can be leased out or sold as encroachers have settlements on the rest. A policy of the government has come in the way of removing the encroachers,” said a bureaucrat.

The Bengal cabinet in 2015 adopted a policy of granting long-term settlement rights to those occupying government land for at least five years.

It drew flak from several quarters amid fears that it would stall development projects. But the state government, which follows a hands-off land policy, did not reconsider.

Based on the policy, the state government went on to grant long-term settlement rights to thousands of those living on state government land ahead of 2021 polls.

“Now, for the first time the state government is facing a problem over it. It will be interesting to see if the state reviews its policy in order to make its DPL plan successful,” said a senior official.

But, officials said the government had laid stress on clearing encroachments from DPL land during Thursday’s meeting. “This is a positive move. If the state goes ahead with its DPL initiative, it means the ruling establishment has realised that encouraging encroachment on government land cannot yield positive results,” said an official.

Sources said the top brass of the state government was unhappy with the DPL authorities as they had come with papers of 154 acres only as these were free from encumbrances.

DPL authorities have been asked to identify more areas that could be sold or leased out by clearing encroachments.

“This (development) gives hope for many projects that could not be taken up because of illegal encroachments,” said a source.

Questions on this particular settlement policy were raised most vocally in 2018-19 when the state government announced Rs 17,000 crore of infrastructure projects across the state. However, the projects never took off.