Chief Minister Pema Khandu Bats For Streamlining Land Acquisition Process

Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Thursday stressed on streamlining processes related to land allotment and land acquisition in the State.

Convening a review meeting of the department of land management here, the Chief Minister emphasised on ways to enhance its performance with regard to revenue generation by the department, an official communique informed.

“Arunachal Pradesh with its huge geographical area has enough potential to tap its land resources for revenue generation,” the chief minister pointed out and sought detailed target and plans of the department.

Going through the detailed presentation made by land management secretary along with officials, Khandu said much has to be done by the department to emerge as one of the leading revenue generating departments of the State Government. Incidentally, the department projected a target revenue of Rs 50 crore this year from the Rs 12 crore generated last year.

Khandu stressed on speeding up the process of converting Land Possession Certificates (LPCs) to RoRs (Right of Record) so that revenue from land allotments is enhanced optimally. Departmental officers informed that the state policy in this regard has already been approved and software as well as equipment to digitalize land records are in place. Soon the process of conversion would be undertaken by the respective district administrations, they added.

“Once all records are digitalized and conversion of LPCs to RoRs which, is equivalent to land allotment, is completed, revenue generation of the department would shoot up,” the officers assured. They informed that almost 1700 new land allotments have been given after the government decision on conversion of LPCs to RoRs, about 400 of which is in the capital complex. Rest are in various stages of process, they added.

The department’s attention was drawn towards reported ‘illegal’ allotments within government colonies and advised to re-verify such cases if any.

Discussing on land acquisition for various purposes, Khandu was informed that land required for the Hollongi Airport has been acquired and handed over to Airports Authority of India. Also except for one section in Lower Subansiri district, land acquisition for the Trans Arunachal Highway is almost complete in other parts of the state.

The department sought attention of the government towards the issue of non-uniformity in land acquisition rates across the state, which it said needs to be rationalized to make easy acquisition processes. The progress of cadastral survey of districts being done by the department was also discussed in detail. Acknowledging the shortage of staff and lack of technical know-how on digitalization and cadastral survey in the department, the chief minister underscored the importance of capacity building of departmental officials.

He assured budgetary provisions to the department for the same, the communique added.

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