Secretary-general of the Socialist Janata Democratic (SJD) K. Krishnankutty in a letter to Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Monday urged him to take action on the report of a committee headed by the Chief Secretary on alienation of tribal land and encroachments on it by some multinational windmill companies at Attappady in the district.
The letter said the report submitted to the Chief Minister three months ago recommended action against the departments like Energy, Revenue, Registration, Forest, Scheduled Caste Development, Taxes and the Attappady Hill Area Development Society (AHADS) for serious lapses that helped the usurping of tribal land by the windmill companies. But no action had been initiated against officials of these departments so far.
The letter said that the windmill companies got the tribal land registered without producing the basic documents. The land was registered using fabricated documents of ownership that resulted in the tribespeople losing hundreds of acres at Kottathara, Agali and Sholayur villages of Attappady.
The officials of the Registration Department violated the Registration Act of 1908 that stipulated the basic documents required to allow registration of land, Mr. Krishnankutty said.
The letter said that due to undervaluation of the property, the government lost Rs.13.21 crore in just eight cases alone. So far, the government had not taken any action against the officials of the Registration Department for causing huge loss to the exchequer.
It said the land that was illegally registered should be returned to the tribes by cancelling these documents.
The letter said that the windmill companies did not take permission from the panchayats to set up windmills.
The letter said it had been proved beyond doubt by the committee that there were serious lapses and connivance on the part of the officials of the departments of Revenue, Forest, Registration, Electricity and SC/ ST Development in alienating tribal land. So action should be taken against them under the provisions of the Prevention of Atrocities Against Tribal Act, Mr. Krishnankutty said.
