Dispur forms Cabinet panel to protect land rights for Indigenous people

l Focus on shielding tribal belts/blocks * Gorkhas classified as “grazziers”

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Following approval of the new ‘Land Policy-2019’ by the State Cabinet, the State government has constituted a four-member Cabinet Sub-Committee. This panel will make recommendations after examining issues related to the indigenous inhabitants in the tribal belts and blocks as well as the Gorkhas classified as “grazziers”. The Cabinet Sub-Committee will have to file its report within three months.

After approval of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, the nodal ‘Revenue & Disaster Management Department’ in this regard has issued the notification regarding formation of the Cabinet Sub-Committee. This Cabinet panel will be headed by Industries & Commerce Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary. The other members of the panel are Tourism, WPT&BC Minister Chandan Brahma, Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahanta, and Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, Panchayat, & Rural Development Naba Kumar Doley. The Secretary of Revenue & Disaster Management Department, Dilip Das, is the Member Secretary of this Cabinet Sub-Committee.

The step has been initiated after the Assam government noticed that lands belonging to indigenous tribal people were being procured by non-tribal people through fraudulent means. Besides, there have been encroachments by people of suspected nationality in many protected land areas.

The Land Policy-2019 ensures implementation of the provisions of Chapter-X of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation (ALRR), 1886 in respect of land belonging to protected classes. The respective Deputy Commissioners (DCs) will have to take utmost care while according permission for transfer of land within the protected Belts/Blocks. Moreover, the DCs will have to ensure that no non-eligible person gets permission to acquire land in such protected areas. Further the Regulation provisions will be “followed scrupulously” for “removal of non-eligible persons” from the protected areas.

Even in case of “land transfer to registered co-operative society/farms/ company etc., the DCs will ensure that all the members including the office bearers are from the protected classes of persons as notified by the Government”.

However, the Land Policy-2019 adds that the “Government Departments/ Institutions/ Organizations/ Corporations/ Company and other Government Bodies may be allotted land for public purpose.”

With respect to land transfer in the protected belt/block in Kamrup (M) and Kamrup District, the DCs will have to take prior approval from the Government.

There are 85, 80,842 bighas of land under 17 tribal belts and 30 tribal blocks in the State. The process of reservation of land under such belts and blocks started soon after the country’s Independence. The first notification towards this end was issued on December 5, 1947 when land were reserved in Sidli situated in the then Goalpara district. Land was preserved in Lakhimpur district for the second time through an official notification issued on April 28 in 1948. The notification issued on July 12, 1948, reserved land under tribal belts and blocks in Darrang district.

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