Tripura government to Amend Land Law

A CORRESPONDENT

AGARTALA, Aug 17: Tripura government has decided to reform the existing Tripura Land Reform and Land Records Act, 1960 in order to remove certain loopholes which has been causing constraints in implementation of government projects.

Revenue Minister Narendra Chandra Debbarma said some provisions of the existing act are contradictory to the central act and these will be removed during the amendment. He said the revenue department is examining all the aspects of the act and after considering all sides, a draft will be sent to the law department. After getting clearance from the law department a formal bill will be brought in the State assembly.

Immediately after coming into power the BJP-IPFT coalition government decided to restore all the illegally occupied government land and firstly targeted the offices of the political parties and their mass organizations constructed on government land. The government has already demolished few hundreds of such illegal structure belonging to political parties and their affiliated organizations. The CPI(M) that constructed huge infrastructure across the State during their last 25 year rule were the biggest victim while some very old offices of the Congress and BJP also was demolished.

The minister said while executing this decision they found some loopholes in the law and felt the need to amend the act. After the political parties the second biggest illegal occupants are the religious structures like temple, churches and mosques. He said though the government has taken decision to remove all illegal occupants, the sentiment and emotion involved with the religious structures can’t be ignored and the government is exploring the possibility of giving them allotment.

He said the government has initiated a process to give allotment of land to the landless people of the state and a review meeting will be held on August 21 where Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb will be present. A major aspect of the proposed amendment will be formation of sub-division level committees who will select the names of persons who will get the land allotment. The minister said all these committees will be constituted with government officials only and in the interest of transparency no political person or public representative will be there in these committees.