Land racket rules the roost in Kamrup (M) DC office

People running from pillar to post to get their land related works done

GUWAHATI, June 14: Thirty years ago when his father had purchased a plot of land at Dakhingaon under Dispur revenue circle in Kamrup metro district it was like a dream coming true. Down the line it was a dream shattered when he (a government official) went to build a dream house at the plot.

“When we went to Dakhingaon to construct a house one and half year ago, the shape of the original plot of land was found different and the approach road to the plot was missing. A relative of an influential politician has haphazardly built a boundary wall near our plot making it completely unsuitable for construction of a house for us,” the official said. The official immediately applied for land demarcation documents. But to his utter shock and surprise the approach road was found missing in the latest land documents.

On other hand S. Devi, a widow has been passing sleepless nights for nearly two year as her application for registering the land originally owned by her deceased husband; in her name has been gathering dust in tables of the office of deputy commissioner of Kamrup metro district.

The government official and S. Devi are not alone. There are hundreds of people running from pillar to post to get their land related work done at the office of DC of Kamrup metro. At a time when files relating to land related works in government departments at many States are moving at the click of a mouse, piles of similar kind of files at the DC office of Kamrup metro are either not all moving forward or moving at a slower at a snail’s pace. Reason is not far to seek. Barababu, Lat Mandal and Kanango and other officials at five revenue circle offices under the Kamrup metro administration are allegedly in a hand in glove relationship with unscrupulous elements, brokers and even land mafias to run a land racket. Due to existence of such racket the common people are at their receiving end even to get their legitimate land records. “As per rules a petition for land demarcation must be disposed by the concerned revenue circle office within a week. But only the reverse is happening and thousands of such petitions are lying pending at Kamrup metro DC office for years,” a source said.

The development has resulted in many genuine patta holders either to lose their land to land mafia or waiting for disposal of their land petitions without a fixed time frame.

Prabin Jyoti Kalita, a Guwahati based land rights activist said until and unless the deep-rooted racket is unearthed and uprooted from the Kamrup metro DC office, pain and agonies of common people will refuse to cease.

The development is an irony and tragedy at a time when the present regime in Dispur is making tall claims to safeguard land rights of the indigenous people of the State.