Land inspections find the problem of inflated cultivated land retention figures remains prominent
The No. 1 National Land Inspection Announcement of 2015 released on the 28th shows that in some places, illegal and irregular land use, especially the indiscriminate occupation and abuse of cultivated land, false balance of cultivated land occupation and compensation, and inflated cultivated land retention figures remain prominent.
According to the announcement, inspections conducted in 2014 on the fulfillment of the target responsibility for cultivated land protection found 2,228 cases of illegal and irregular land use, involving 122,400 mu of cultivated land. The national land inspection agencies issued Rectification Opinions to the governments of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai provinces. Routine inspections of 56 cities found that 1,215 projects (batches) in 47 cities did not supplement cultivated land as required or did not pay cultivated land reclamation fees as required, involving an area of 153,000 mu; 45 cities were found to have classified some construction land, including housing, factories and reservoir water surfaces, as cultivated land, involving an area of 107,400 mu.
The announcement said that as of now, 56 cities have implemented supplementary cultivated land of 35,000 mu, restored 44,300 mu of land to cultivation, demolished 5,346,800 sq m of illegal structures, imposed Party discipline and administrative discipline punishments on 4,624 people, transferred 622 people to judicial organs for criminal responsibility, urged the implementation of 4.343 billion yuan in social security funds for farmers whose land was expropriated, recovered 31.702 billion yuan in land transfer revenue and corrected reductions and exemptions of land transfer revenue.
⟦NL> In response to the prominent problems of serious extensive use and waste of land in some places and the large amount of approved but unsupplied land and idle land, a special inspection on economical and intensive land use carried out in the third quarter of 2014 found that as of September 30, 2014, within the previous five years, there were 13,009,900 mu of approved but unsupplied land and 1,052,700 mu of idle land nationwide. In the first quarter of 2014, the national land inspection agencies carried out a special inspection on land use in industries with severe overcapacity and found that as of the end of 2013, 25 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps had illegal and irregular land use problems in industries with severe overcapacity, including steel, cement, electrolytic aluminum, flat glass and shipbuilding, with a total of 354 projects, involving a land area of 328,900 mu.