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Guwahati: The BJP-led Assam government has decided to provide land patta to the indigenous people of the state.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday said that, those indigenous people who have not been able to get land patta even after staying on the same plot of land for decades would be provided patta in the first phase itself. Rest of the indigenous people would get land patta in
the subsequent phases.
Sonowal said while presiding over the meeting with the Chairman of the Committee on Protection of Land Rights of Indigenous People Hari Sankar Brahma and other members of the committee at the Chief Minister's conference room at Assam Secretariat that, without protecting the land rights of indigenous people their language, culture, and literature cannot be protected.
'The state government is committed to safeguard the interest of the people of the land and hence steps like initiating reforms in Land Laws have been taken in earnest. The government will act on the recommendations of the Committee that has been formed for the first time to ensure land rights of the indigenous population,' Sonowal said.
The recommendations for reforming the Land Laws of 1886, safeguarding the interest of the indigenous people while selling or buying lands etc would be considered for implementation by the government,â€Â Sonowal said.
The Assam CM also directed the Revenue Department to streamline the classification process of lands removing all discrepancies.
It is to be mentioned here that the Committee on Protection of Land Rights of Indigenous People constituted under the chairmanship of Hari Sankar Brahma has already carried out discussions with various stakeholders like Deputy Commissioners, Moujadars, Gaon Burhas, MLAs for holistic protection of indigenous population of the state.
The report of the Committee to be prepared after visiting all 32 districts would be handed over to Chief Minister in the first week of June 2017.
During the meeting, Chairman of the committee Hari Sankar Brahma said that an extensive land survey needs to be carried out in the state as there is no such survey conducted since 1964.
He also opined that Deputy Commissioners must also be sensitised about safeguarding the rights of indigenous people during buying and selling of lands and the indigenous people must be made aware of their rights regarding land ownership.
The meeting also discussed important issues like transferring of agricultural lands to non agricultural type, forming a task force for protecting land rights of indigenous population, allotting of non-ceiling land to landless indigenous people etc.
Media Adviser to the Chief Minister Hrishikesh Goswami, Legal Adviser to the Chief Minister Santanu Bharali, members of the Committee and other top officials of Revenue Department were present in the meeting.
(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
