The Hindu : Tribals likely to be given 'record of rights'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 01, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Tribals likely to be given 'record of rights'

By T. Ramavarman

THRISSUR MAY 31. In a desperate bid to salvage the sinking land agreement signed between the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, and the tribal leader, C. K. Janu, in October last year, the Government is planning to give `record of rights' for the land to be given to the tribals.

It is also considering a proposal to abandon the proposal to conduct a resurvey to identify the `real landless' tribals.

The move is apparently being pursued by the Government as it has realised that it will be nearly impossible to identify enough land on which clear title deeds can be given to the landless tribals as per the agreement, unless the Centre gives the green signal for using the forest land for this purpose.

However, the new move is also to give the record of rights mainly on the forest land, and it remains to be seen whether there will be adequate legal protection to such a document as well.

It is also not clear whether the move will satisfy the tribals in the State who were on a decades-old agitation to get a piece of land to tide over their abject stage of deprivation.

The Minister for Welfare of SC/ST Sections, M. A. Kuttappan, told The Hindu here that the proposal to give record of rights for land to the tribals would be presented before the Cabinet Sub-Committee scheduled to meet in Thiruvananthapuram on June 11.

The proposal has been given clearance by the high-power committee for the implementation of the Antony-Janu agreement, which comprises the Chief Minister, the Minister for Welfare of SC/ST Sections, the Minister for Forest and senior officials of those two departments, on Wednesday.

The Minister also disclosed that the Government was abandoning the move to conduct a fresh survey to identify the real landless tribals as it would antagonise the tribal groups.

But the Government was convinced that there was inflation in the present list giving the number of landless tribals in the State. New methods would be evolved to identify the real landless tribals.

One strategy that was under consideration in this regard was to invite applications from the tribals for availing land through advertisements.

The Government then proposes to scrutinize the applications through a joint verification by Revenue, Forest and SC/ST departments, and restrict the allocation of the land to genuine landless tribals.

Replying to questions, the Minister said the present idea was mainly to use the forest land for this purpose, and steps would also be taken to identify maximum revenue land.

He conceded that the move to get Central sanction for distributing forest land to the tribals with full title deeds had not yielded any positive results so far.

"They (the Central officials) are arguing that even now, reports of encroachments into forest lands are coming from Kerala, then how can the State be permitted to use the forest land for distribution to tribals?'

Asked whether the new move would have the necessary legal protection, the Minister said that earlier, the settler farmers were given such record of rights.

Also, the State was only planning to use the thin forest and not the dense forests for distributing land to the tribals. The Government would later negotiate with the Centre to give the permanent title deeds on the land to the tribals.

He said the Government was not planning to hold any formal talks with the tribals on this new proposal.

But according to social activists here, the response of the tribals was unlikely to be fully positive on this new proposal, as the record of rights might not give them (the tribals) the full rights to pledge the land and to take any loan even for agricultural purposes.

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