IPOH – A total of 7,872.71ha of land, or 0.38% of the 2.09 million hectares of land in Perak, has been encroached upon for various illegal activities, the state legislative assembly was told today.
Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad said 7,307.59ha or 92.82% of the land was encroached on for agricultural activities.
“It was reported that 400.09ha of land was used illegally for farming and industry while the remaining 165.03ha were occupied by squatters,” he said when replying to a question from Razman Zakaria (Gunung Semanggol-PAS).
Saarani said the state government had set up a committee to resolve the problems of squatters and illegal occupation of government land.
The committee is monitoring and identifying illegal activities and squatters on land owned by the state government in addition to implementing punitive actions to combat land encroachment, he said.
He added that data analysis showed that from 2018 until last year, a total of 5,959.74ha of government land encroached by illegal settlers had been given to various agencies and government-owned corporations.
Of that amount, 3,930.79ha had been rented or leased to the settlers and 1,328.03ha had been planned for development, renting or leasing to illegal settlers. – Bernama, December 21, 2022
