Lucknow, Sep 7 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government's anti-land mafia task force has freed over 8,038 hectares of government land from encroachment and land grabbers, an official said on Thursday.

Principal Secretary (Revenue) Rajneesh Dubey said that a total of 20,236.42 hectares of land was identified as belonging to the gram sabhas but was encroached upon.

He added that 8,038.38 hectares of land has been cleared of encroachments and the rest was also being vacated by the authorities. 

Dubey said that 1,434 land mafias' had been identified in the state having grabbed 1,989 hectares of government land, adding 717 hectares has been vacated by now.

The formation of an anti-land mafia task force was one of the major poll promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the state assembly elections.

BJP President Amit Shah had even publicized an e-mail address in the run-up to the polls, seeking information from the people of their land that has been grabbed by the land mafias.

Meanwhile, Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar has asked the revenue department officials to expedite the process of clearing the encroachments on government lands and also to make a detailed list of such people who have grabbed government land per district and follow it up with legal action within the next fortnight.