Himachal village still part of Punjab

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, December 24

Another year has passed, but there is no end to the woes of residents of Lal Singhi village located just a kilometre from the district headquarters of Una district.

It has been 48 years since Una district was merged in Himachal, but the village is still a part of Hoshiarpur district of Punjab in revenue records.

The revenue officials have not been able to change the records. Villagers are constantly involved in litigation as the land has not been demarcated for decades. They also face difficulty in selling their land or putting it to other use.

Himachal Pradesh was carved out of Punjab in 1966. Una district, which was a tehsil of Hoshiarpur district in the joint Punjab, was included in Himachal.

During the previous BJP government’s tenure, registries of land in the village were allowed. Still the mutations of sold land have not been done in the absence of original records. As the land has also not been divided between families, frequent disputes are the order of the day.

The previous BJP government made efforts to locate the original record and had sent revenue officials to Hoshiarpur. But the officials failed to trace the papers. A new record was prepared but it was not accepted or implemented.

The previous government also issued directions to prepare revenue records of the village as per the actual possession. However, the officials of settlement office apprehend that this might not solve the problem. They said that actual possessions are already disputed. Itwas necessary to take the consent of residentsbefore making ground possession permanent.

Despite all the work in progress, the Himachal Government or officials of the Revenue Department have not been able to prepare the new record of 3,600 hectares in the village. The five-decade delay to the problem can be attributed to inefficiency of revenue officials or their unwillingness to resolve the issue.

Settlement officials here blame the first Deputy Commissioner of Una for failing to procure the revenue records of the village from Hoshiarpur. This is also leading to encroachments on government land in the village. Had the revenue records of the village been available, the government could have revived the old Una-Amb road, said villagers.

A peeved resident of Lal Singhi village said if they were a part of Hoshiarpur district, then Section 118 of the Land Tenancy Act that barred Himachal agriculturists to sell land to outsiders should not be applied to them.