MITHI: Tharparkar revenue department has failed to enforce the official ban on cultivating land reserved for grazing and tops of sand dunes and has also been unable to take action against influential encroachers in the wake of abundant rain across the length and breadth of the arid region.

Most of the grazing land spread over 22,000 square kilometres meant to produce fodder for livestock in the rain-dependent Thar, has been brought under cultivation by greedy elements.

Locals and social activists told Dawn on Wednesday that no serious effort was being made by the revenue officials to take punitive action against the illegal practice, which was depriving cattle of fodder.

They said that more than half the grazing land had been cultivated in the entire district but officials concerned were sitting unconcerned. Action had been taken against only a handful of encroachers while those affiliated with the ruling party or influential persons were openly violating the ban on cultivation, said sources.

Thar Deputy Commissioner Dr Abdul Hafeez Sial said that he had directed the revenue officials concerned to launch a massive crackdown against land-grabbers, bulldoze the crops they had sown or let herds of cattle trample down the illegally cultivated land.

He said that he was trying his level best to put an end to the menace with the help of police in the light of directives of the high-ups and existing laws.

The unbridled greed to bring more and more land under cultivation is on the one hand depriving over seven million livestock of fodder while on the other the large tracts of grazing land, enemy and evacuee properties have become a bone of contention among Tharis and causing bloody feuds.