Govt. fails to renew rents on forest leases

By Roy Mathew

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC. 11. The Government is failing to renew rents on thousands of hectares of Government grants and leases as the Bill passed by the Assembly is awaiting the assent of the President for the past one-and-a-half years.

The lessees, who include major plantations in the State, pay only a nominal rent of a few rupees per acre as of now. The Government has been going slow in the matter though the State was facing serious financial crisis.

The land in question had been leased to various companies, plantations and others by the erstwhile Governments of Travancore and Kochi. These include grants and leases totalling 9,100 hectares in Nelliampathy and other plantation areas and about 5,800 hectares leased on quit rent basis.

Besides, there are about 64,000 acres of plantations classified as revenue land.

An Act to revise the lease rents was passed by the Assembly as back as 1980. However, rules were framed only in 1990. As per this, the lessees were to pay 75 per cent of the profits from the land as rent.

However, as Collectors took steps to enforce the rules, the Government stayed it on the basis of a representation received from the Planters Associations, pending review of the provision. However, matters rested there for years.

In 1996, the Assurance Committee of the Assembly pointed out in its report that the Government was losing Rs. 500 crores a year on account of delay in revising the rents.

As corruption was alleged in the staying of the implementation of the rules, the Assembly Committee on Environment in 1997 recommended that a Vigilance inquiry should be conducted into the circumstances of the stay and subsequent Government order that gave legal validity to irregular transfers of forest leases.

However, no action was taken on this report which even recommended the Government takeover of the forest leases.

But, the House passed an amendment to the original Act in 1999 taking away the provision that the plantations should pay 75 per cent of their profit as rent and specifying new norms for fixing the rent from time to time.

The Kerala Grants and Leases (Modification of Rights) Amendment Bill was sent for President's assent on April 29, 1999.

However, the Bill was still under the consideration of the Union Ministry of Home.

According to official sources, the Union Ministry had been raising queries after queries which appeared to be aimed at delaying the assent. Though it was only an Amendment Bill, the Union Ministries are virtually functioning as a select committee on the Bill.

First, copies of the Bill were sent to all interested parties and their comments were sought on it. Then queries were sent to the State Government on them.

Subsequently, questions were raised about the legal status of the leases and whether they could be renewed without clearance from the Centre under the Forest Act.

The State Government's views have also been sought on the comments of the commodity boards that the rent specified was too high. The State Government is yet to respond.

It is to be noted that the President had given assent to the parent Act and that the amendment actually seeks to reduce the incidence of rent on the plantation companies.

As an effort to mop up revenues, the State Government had decided, a few years back, that various fees, charges, rents and the like, should be revised to fetch additional revenues to the State.

The then Chief Secretary had even drawn up a detailed list of items which could be revised. The revision of rents on revenue and forest leases was a major component of this. Considerable disparity exists now between lease rents being paid by the Government agencies and the private sector. Public sector companies now pay Rs. 1,300 per hectare a year for forest leases when the private sector was paying a pittance.

In the case of most of the revenue leases, rents could be revised as it was not covered under the Grants and Leases Act. In fact, educational and charitable institutions are paying 20 per cent of the land value as lease rent, while private agencies, some of whom are using the lease land for commercial purposes, pay nominal rents.

The rules covering these leases were revised in 1995. They provided that the lessees should renew the leases paying 20 per cent of the land value as rent. However, only a few had done so while the others approached the Government with petitions. The Government action on them was pending.

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