Farmers of Chandigarh villages reiterate demand for land pooling policy

After the Punjab Government notified the change of land use (CLU) for periphery farmhouses under the Forest Act, residents of various UT villages have reiterated their demand for a land pooling policy.

Alleging that the Chandigarh Administration has done nothing so far for its original inhabitants, the villagers stated that while Punjab had moved ahead with CLU permissions, the UT Administration has neither announced any land use policy, nor initiated any land pooling policy for farmers living in villages within the UT.

The residents questioned whether the Periphery Act applied only to Chandigarh residents and not to those from Punjab or Haryana, highlighting what they described as a policy imbalance.

The villagers stated that the Administration was interested only in tax collection, not in extending development benefits. Calling for a collective action, Satinder Pal Singh Sidhu, a farm leader and chairman of the Chandigarh State Cooperative Bank, demanded that the Administration should introduce a proper CLU and land pooling policy for Chandigarh’s rural belt without further delay.

At present, nearly 1,000 famers own nearly 2,800 acres of cultivable land in the city.