Protecting land rights of the indigenous

Bijendra Gogoi

(bijendragogoidme@gmail.com)

The Government of Assam launched Mission Basundhara on October 2, 2021, with a view to bringing transformative changes in the state’s land revenue system. While rolling out the initiative, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Mission Basundhara was a historic and decisive step towards streamlining land revenue services. Dr. Sarma asserted that the Mission would eliminate middlemen from the system and unnecessary visits by people to government offices. It would empower the public to resolve their land-related issues online in a hassle-free manner. Mission Basundhara addressed the purification of textual land records by carrying out arrear mutation and partition, legacy data correction, completing a detailed survey of non-cadastral villages, and resurveying all cadastral villages for full integration of textual and geospatial data. Mission Basundhara 1.0 culminated on May 8, 2022. Within a period of just 7 months, the state government disposed of more than 8 lakh land-related applications. This set a new record in the annals of the administrative history of Assam.

The state government launched Mission Basundhara 2.0 on November 14, 2022, offering next-generation land-related services. While the services of Mission Basundhara 1.0 were mainly limited to patta land, under Mission Basundhara 2.0, the government offered services like settlement of annual patta lands that have been transferred in the past to the eligible persons as per Land Policy with a view to giving permanent, heritable, and transferable rights; settlement of VGR/PGR land; ownership rights to occupancy tenants; settlement of government or Khas and ceiling surplus land; settlement of hereditary land of tribal communities; and settlement of land for special cultivation to indigenous growers.

The Mission Basundhara 2.0 services addressed the issue of granting equitable land rights to indigenous landless people and securing the rights of tribal communities over their hereditary land. Under this phase, the state government settled more than 3 lakh bighas of land in the Brahmaputra Valley and more than 1,214 bighas in the Barak Valley. The state government issued “Offers of Settlement” to 2,29,659 applicants. Notably, 84 percent of the people who received “Offers of Settlement” were indigenous people belonging to Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, and MOBC.

Taking forward the reform in the land revenue service, the Chief Minister on September 8 launched three new initiatives, which included e-Chitha, an escalation matrix, and a public response portal of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority for timely disposal of land assessment certificates and applications. The escalation matrix would ensure timely disposal of applications received by the Revenue Department and introduce a strong level of systematic review of applications. The e-Chitha system would provide information on previous purchases and sales of a particular land, thereby preventing land-related fraud. The Public Response Portal of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority was launched to lend a helping hand to the victims during disasters. The Chief Minister in the meeting also informed about preparations to officially launch Mission Basundhara 3.0 on October 2.

While highlighting the proposed services under the new phase, the Chief Minister said that the “definition of three generations” would be waived off for the individuals belonging to tea tribes, Adivasi, the Gorkha community, and people belonging to six ethnic communities in the state to get land rights. This means that people of these communities would be considered for allotment of land pattas without any evidence of a three-generational legacy associated with the piece of land. Moreover, the state government would declare the six ethnic and Gorkha communities of Assam as protected classes in the tribal belts and blocks of Lakhimpur, Tirap, and other places. These moves would indeed greatly benefit the indigenous people of the state.

To roll out of Mission Basundhara 3.0 services, several key legislative amendments have been passed by the Assam Legislative Assembly in the recently concluded autumn session. For protection of lands in the vicinity of heritage and iconic structures, a new chapter has been incorporated in the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2024. Also, amendments were made in the Regulation for the creation of microbelts and blocks in villages to protect the land rights of indigenous communities of the state.

The state government proposes to launch eight services under Mission Basundhara 3.0 through the Sewa Setu Portal. This includes services like review of remaining Mission Basundhara 2.0 cases pending for clarification, digitalised settlement of land to non-individual juridical entities, settlement of erstwhile Bhoodan/Gramdan land, ownership rights to occupancy tenants in urban areas which were erstwhile rural areas, offering a reclassification suite, end-to-end digitalization of annual patta to periodic patta, conversion with rationalized premium rates in urban areas and peripheral areas, limited conversion of Tea grant land to periodic patta, and settlement of land under the SVAMITVA Non-Cadastral Village Survey. In addition to these eight services, the state government also plans to offer four more land-related services by December this year. These services are: settlement of lands acquired from religious institutions; registration of non-formal legacy land transfers; mission mode land revenue arrear realization with emphasis on urban areas; and a new service for digital delivery of geospatial maps of land.

The Chief Minister in the meeting on September 8 said that under Mission Basundhara 3.0, “Offers of Settlement” would be issued to the beneficiaries every month from January next year, and the campaign would continue till the final application is disposed of. The Chief Minister also said that core agricultural land of the state would be identified on the basis of the recommendations of clause 6 of the Assam Accord, and such land would not be allowed for reclassification. He said the state government is moving towards identifying several revenue circles in which only people whose names are on the 1951 voter list could purchase and sell land. The state government has also decided to enact a law that only people belonging to SC or ST and other backward classes could purchase and sell land in undivided Goalpara district.

Mission Basundhara has galvanized modernizing the land governance system in Assam. This mission mode initiative has had a far-reaching impact on protecting the land rights of the indigenous communities. Through this, the administration has also received purified land documents. Mission Basundhara has now become a shining example of good governance, and it will have a lasting impact on the socio-economic development of the state in the coming days.