1,000 farmers to get land ownership rights after 46 years
Ashok Raina
Kangra, December 21
The state government has decided to grant land ownership rights to 1,000 farmers (Gair marusi muzaras, also known as tenants) of 42 villages of Dehra, Dada Siba and Jaswan Pragpur after their struggle of 46 years.
This was stated by Minister for Industries and Technical Education Bikram Singh Thakur here on Friday. The minister said he had taken up the issue of the farmers at different levels when he was an MLA during the previous Congress regime. However, the authorities “ignored” the sensitive issue.
He said inquiries had revealed that the then government had obtained the land of the ‘gair marusi muzaras’ by doing wrong entries in revenue records. This deprived the farmers of their ownership rights. According to the HP Land Ceiling Act, 1912, the maximum surplus land of Raja Harminder Singh of Dada Siba province was transferred in favour of the state government. All these ‘gair marusi muzaras (tenants) were established in the owned land of the erstwhile ruler since l911-12.
The land owned by these tenants under Section 104(3) of the HP Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1972, was erroneously declared surplus and was given to the government.
Due to this official mistake, these owners were recorded as the tenants of the Himachal government in revenue records. These farmers had been protesting for getting the correction done in the revenue records for the last 46 years. BJP spokesperson Sapan Sood said Bikram Singh Thakur took up the matter with Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who ordered an inquiry into the matter. The probe was conducted by SDM, Dehra, Dhanvir Thakur. In his report, the SDM confirmed that wrong entries were made in the revenue records and thus these farmers be made the owners of their land.
The state government has ordered to make the relevant corrections in the revenue records. The Industries Minister said each farmers now owned land measuring from 2 to 20 kanals. In Tika Nangal Chowk of the Jambal Patwar circle, 115 farmers had been benefited by this decision. They now owned 592 kanal.
The farmers expressed their gratitude to the Chief Minister and the Industries Minister.
