Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Speed up restoration of land to tribals: panel

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD July 27. The AP Legislature Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Tribes has strongly recommended to the Government to initiate action to restore tribal land to tribals on a war-footing, by strictly implementing the protective 1/70 regulation and as a step to curb extremist activities.

On filling of backlog vacancies and implementation of rule of reservation in services, another aspect studied by the Committee, it regretted that though the Government with good intention instructed strict implementation, the administrative authorities never implemented them and kept them in cold storage.

In its report tabled in the Assembly on Saturday, the Committee said the fact that only 99,772 acres out of 3,08,817 acres of tribal land under the illegal occupation of non-tribals, has been restored to tribals, shows that a large extent of tribal land continue to be under illegal occupation. This was one reason why the tribals came under the influence of extremist activities.

The Committee headed by N. Gopala Rao, said during its visit to Rampachodavaram, Bhadarachalam and Paderu Agency areas, the tribals repeatedly pleaded against amending the 1/70 Regulation and eviction of non- tribals illegally occupying lands belonging to tribals. Referring to another welfare measure, the Committee recommended special staff for enforcement of the Money Lenders Regulation and Debt Relief Regulation of 1960 and 1970.

It wanted the Government to constitute more tribal co-operative societies for excavation of minerals in the agency areas to check the non-tribals to exploit the situation under benami names of tribals.

The Commissioner of Tribal Welfare informed the Committee that there were about 6,700 ST backlog vacancies in various departments, the highest of 3,000 in the Education department, 715 in the Medical and Health department, 700 in the Revenue department and 650 in the Transport, Roads and Buildings department. This was despite the fact that the Government had given relaxations to ST candidates.

The Committee noticed that there were a large number of ST candidates of various categories available on the rolls of the District Empolyment Exchange and Central Employment Exchange but the recruiting authorities were stating otherwise even for Class- IV posts.

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