Dispur mulls new land policy for locals

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, June 30: Dispur has decided to formulate a new land policy on the basis of recommendations and suggestions of the Committee for Protection of Land Rights of Indigenous People of Assam.

Minister of State for Revenue Bhabesh Kalita said the present BJP regime in Dispur is committed to protect the land rights of indigenous people and has therefore studied the report with all seriousness.

“The State Government has already accepted the committee report and is seriously considering the recommendations. We will soon chalk out a new land policy and it will be tabled in the next Assembly session,” Kalita said.

Hari Shankar Brahma, former Chief Election Commissioner, submitted the committee report to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal in May.

In his final report, Brahma has recommended that the Government should carry out land survey and offer land to the deserving indigenous people, those affected by floods and other natural calamities, as well as the youth entrepreneurs who have opened small tea gardens.

Warning that in the near future the indigenous people would be reduced to a landless class of people, the report observes that vital actions must be taken. The committee specifically referred to remedial steps like effective constitutional, legal and administrative steps, and including sealing of the Indo-Bangladesh border besides detection and deportation of the illegal immigrants.

Another serious observations made by the HS Brahma Committee is that the status of the local people would be akin to that of foreigners in their own homeland in the near future.