Indigenous interest

Several organizations representing the cause of the indigenous and tribal communities have expressed the apprehension that ‘Mission Basundhara‘ has not been able to meet the demands and requirements of the indigenous communities, as was originally promised by the government when the programme was launched. ‚Mission Basundhara’, it may be recalled, was conceptualized under the leadership of Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma with the objective of streamlining and resolving land revenue services in the state and making land revenue services in the state more accessible to citizens. The mission also envisages to reduce the pendency in the updation of land records, through mission mode-accelerated disposal of services sought by citizens, and creating an ease-of-doing business environment in the land-management-ecosystem. Going by media reports, the All Assam Tribal Sangha has expressed the view that the tribal and indigenous communities of the state have not got the kind of benevolent treatment, which they had expected to receive under Mission Basundhara 2.0. The Sangha has also opined that the land rules need to be relaxed, in order to make tribal and indigenous people friendlier, because these communities have been the worst sufferers since decades, especially in the backdrop of large-scale immigration of people from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh. It has been said that one of the services under Mission Basundhara 2.0 was granting tribal people rights over up to 50 bighas of land under their possession for generations. But the Sangha’s apprehension is that, while the government took the decision to provide land rights to tribal people, who possess such lands for generations, only 7,872 applicants under this category have been considered eligible for land settlement, leading to rejection of 14,013 applications made by tribal persons. If the apprehension of the All Assam Tribal Sangha is considered to be true, then this is definitely a serious matter, and the Chief Minister should take a call on this at the earliest. It may be so, that while the Chief Minister’s intentions and objectives are genuinely made in the interest of the indigenous and tribal communities, there is every possibility of a section of bureaucrats throwing a spanner in the entire process. After all, a section of unscrupulous bureaucrats and lower-level-clerks was responsible, along with a section of politicians, for helping illegal immigrants occupy land and then regularize them at the cost of the indigenous communities.