The West Burdwan district administration will start a survey with the help of drone cameras to identify encroached land parcels of Durgapur Projects Limited (DPL) from Saturday in a bid to enable the power department to sell off or lease out surplus land of the power utility.

Sources said district officials, the DPL management and police would jointly go on a door-to-door campaign to counsel encroachers to vacate.

A DPL official stressed that the process needed to be “peaceful”.

District magistrate Vibhu Goel, on Nabanna’s instructions, held a meeting with the DPL management on Friday to enquire about the company’s unused land which the state government has decided to sell off or lease out.

The DPL has around 3,759 acres in Durgapur, Borjora in Bankura, Bali and Dankuni in Hooghly and Burdwan in East Burdwan. The plant and township along with other infrastructure have come up on around 2,000 acres. Over 1,700 acres are vacant on paper. However, authorities found out that most unused plots are encroached upon and in many settlements the state government supplied power and water connections before the 2017 civic polls.

The visit of police and government officials triggered panic among encroachers. “I have been staying here for over three decades. How can the government ask me to vacate now?” asked Ajit Ruidas.

The area under which the land falls will see civic polls next year. The BJP and the CPM have supported the encroachers.

“The government will have to make it public what they want to do with the land. We won’t allow the government to evacuate people just because it wants to sell the land to private companies,” said Pankaj Roy Sarkar of the CPM.

BJP MLA from Durgapur (West) Lakshman Ghorui said their leader Suvendu Adhikari had raised the issue in the Assembly. “Our priority is people and not private realtors…we will protest,” he said.