lucknow land sharks are encroaching upon ponds to build houses and cash in on the realty boom in city outskirtsduring a recent drive to free waterbodies of squatters district administration found encroachers had levelled ponds and begun construction apartments and rows of houses were erected on at least three concretized water bodiesthe drive was launched after the revenue department submitted a report stating there are around 1400 ponds in the district of which 756 have been levelled and encroached by land mafia most of these ponds are in bakshi ka talab sarojninagar mohanlalganj malihabad and sadar tehsil areas witnessing a realestate boom with expansion of the citywhile multistoried houses were found constructed in sarojninagar bakshi ka talab and mohanlalganj at many places boundary walls were constructed around levelled ponds to build houses at a later stagedistrict magistrate kaushal raj sharma said of 756 encroached ponds around 300 ponds have been freed in the drive launched by the administration in coordination with lucknow municipal corporation lmc lucknow development authority lda and policesharma said the administration found these ponds were lying encroached for over 10 years several drives to free ponds were carried in the past but due to lack of followup and caution land mafias grabbed the water bodies againthe drive will continue to free encroached ponds which will be filled through ground water recharge system rain water or recharged from the nearest canal or river