The Hindu : 'Centre helpless on snatching of tribal lands in agency areas'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 11, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

'Centre helpless on snatching of tribal lands in agency areas'

By Our Special Correspondent

Hyderabad April 10. The Union Government is helpless regarding tribal lands in notified areas snatched by non-tribals by way of sale or lease. This is so because tribal welfare is a State subject. But if the situation needs, the Centre can and will intervene through directives and monitoring to do justice to tribals.

This was stated by the Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jual Oram, during an interaction with journalists at different PIB (Press Information Bureau) centres in the country, including Hyderabad, through video-conference from Delhi after inaugurating the tribal welfare website--{lt}www.nstfdc.nic.in{gt}.

The Minister came out with this reply when asked if the Centre could do anything for solving problems like restoration of tribal lands found in possession of non-tribals in the notified areas of Jeelugumilli-Jangareddygudem in West Godavari district of Andhra Praedesh, an issue which turned into a law and order problem at different points of time in the past. He was non-committal when it was suggested by a Hyderabad-based reporter that the Centre could come out with a uniform law covering the entire country banning such illegal transfer of Girijan lands in place of Regulation 1 of 1970, a law enacted by the Andhra Pradesh Government by which it banned such transfers and was trying to deal with such matters.

Also present at Delhi end were the Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Faggan Singh Kulaste, the Addtional Principal Information Officer, PIB, Deepak Sandhu, and others. Fielding a question from a Delhi scribe as to why disbursement of loans to Girijan beneficiaries was discouraging these days, Mr Oram said the funds by the Centre were directly released to states through the National ST Finance and Development Corporation but the delay, if any, might be due to procedures and processing to be followed at the states' end.

If a State Government required more amounts, they were ready to release them. In fact, a heavy fund flow was ensured under micro-financing programme being implemented at the national level, which was renamed "Adiwasi Swasakthi'' scheme. Mr Oram said they had a plan to furnish information under the website through vernacular languages also. At Hyderabad, the video-conference was participated by the Commissioner for Tribal Welfare, V. K. Agarwal, the PIB director (PR), K. R. Rao, and T. V. K. Reddy, an information officer.

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