GUWAHATI, March 11 - The chairman of the Committee for Protection of Land Rights of the Indigenous People of Assam has submitted its final report to the Government of Assam with stress on strictly implementing the land laws. At the same time, the Committee also incorporated the suggestions and observations that it had made in its interim report submitted on July 20 last year.
The Committee chairman former Chief Election Commissioner HS Brahma, submitted its final report to the Commissioner and Secretary to the Revenue Department, who is the secretary of the Committee, on January 18 and now it is up to the Government to decide on acting on the report for the protection of the land rights of the indigenous people of the State.
Highly placed official sources told The Assam Tribune that the Committee has expressed serious concern over the fact that the implementation of land revenue laws in Assam was very poor over the years. Sources said that the main stress on the report was on strict implementation of the land revenue laws for preventing encroachment by unauthorized persons. The committee recommended that the land laws should be strictly enforced by the Government machinery.
The second major issue, on which the Committee dwelt on was encroachment of Government land, including forest land and tribal belt and blocks by unauthorized persons. The committee pointed out that even the land of the satras was encroached upon, which is a matter of serious concern. The Committee recommended that the Government should launch an eviction drive to clear the encroached land.
The final report incorporated most of the points covered in its interim report submitted last year. It may be mentioned here that in its interim report, the Committee had pointed out that illegal migration of foreigners was one of the greatest threats to the security and identity of the indigenous people of the State. Illegal migration is a constant threat to the existence of the indigenous people and to the very existence of Assam. Such threat came from unrestricted flow of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, whose greed for land filled the pages of well recorded history. Consequently, the infiltrators, numbering several millions, posed a very serious threat to the indigenous people of Assam. If this massive infiltration is not checked immediately by sealing the international border and by detecting and deporting them through a repatriation treaty signed between India and Bangladesh, the situation would further aggravate, the Committee said in its interim report.
The interim report further pointed out that the illegal migrants had been grabbing both Government and private land for years, which could not have been possible without the collusion of the government employees, corrupt bureaucrats and political patronage. Names of Bangladeshi nationals were also included in the voters� lists in violation of the Representation of People�s Act, 1955, the Committee had said in its interim report.
