PANAJI: The Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat has said that it was high time to crack the whip and take action against the mushrooming of illegal structures, even as he said that the government would make revenue and other officials accountable for construction of illegal structures in their jurisdictions.

Intervening during the reply to the queries raised by the members of the House during discussion on demands for revenue, collectorates, settlement and land records, in the State Assembly on Tuesday, Mr Kamat said that mamlatdars, sub-divisional magistrates and administrators of communidades would be made to file monthly affidavits before the collectors, stating that no new illegal structures have come up in their areas.
The Chief Minister further said that the House had adopted a law to regularise the structures that existed on communidade lands before June 2000. He said that the law had, however, remained unimplemented.
The Speaker, Mr Pratapsing Rane, suggested that builders of illegal structures should be heavily fined.
Earlier, the Revenue Minister, Mr Jose Philip D’Souza told the House that steps had been taken to clear the backlog of cases in the courts of mamlatdars and other revenue officials, even as he agreed to a suggestion that special cells be created to handle the clearing of cases. 
Mr D’Souza also said that process for mutation would be simplified for faster clearing of cases and that conversion sanads issued by the department would be permanent.
He further said that various directions had been issued to the officials to prevent encroachment of communidade land, like not issuing no objection certificate for deleting the names of the communidades in Form I and XIV.
The Revenue Minister also said that some structures on Communidade lands that were more than 10 years would be regularised as per the government law, even as he said that some Kumeri cases had been finalised and remaining would be completed by the end of the year.
Earlier, the members of the House cutting across party lines demanded that the government should take steps to prevent encroachments on communidade land and also to save the age old institution from “extinction”.
They also demanded that illegal structures on communidade and government lands be demolished. The members also pointed out the difficulties faced by people in mutation cases and the huge number of pending cases.
Those who participated in the discussion were Mr Manohar Parrikar, Mr Francisco Silveira, Mr Dayanand Mandrekar, Mr Pandurang Madkaikar, Mr Rajesh Patnekar, Mr Pratap Gawas, Mr Damodar Naik, Mr Victoria Fernandes, Mr Ramesh Tawadkar, Mr Reginaldo Aleixo Lourenco, Mr Laxmikant Parsenkar, Mr Chandrakant Kavlekar, Mr Mahadev Naik, Mr Mauvin Godinho and Mr Francisco D’Souza.