There is no outright ownership rights for ‘bagair hukum’ land, says Kagodu Thimmappa

Revenue Minister Kagodu Thimmappa has ruled out providing outright ownership rights to farmers engaged in cultivation on ‘bagair hukum’ land in forest areas.

The Minister told presspersons here on Thursday that those who had applied for regularisation of land would not be evicted and they would be allowed to continue cultivation.

Revenue land

“However, this will not be extended to farmers cultivating on revenue land and ownership rights will be issued to them only after perusing their applications for regularisation,” Mr. Thimmappa said.

He said that a Cabinet sub-committee would be set up to take up the issue of allowing ‘bagair hukum’ cultivation on forest land and regularisation of ‘bagair hukum’ cultivation on revenue land. “The process of regularisation will be completed by December-end this year,” Mr. Thimmappa said.

Asked about the reports of Forest Department officials evicting farmers cultivating on forest land, he said that the rules were clear and if the farmer had already applied for regularisation, he or she could not be evicted till his application was disposed of. “If specific instances are brought to our notice, we will take action against such officials.”

Applications pending

Mr. Thimmappa said that around 5 lakh applications were pending before the government for regularisation of ‘bagair hukum’ cultivation on forest and revenue land. The government would also constitute taluk-level committees for identification of ‘bagair hukum’ land and the number of farmers involved in cultivation.

He said that the Union government had identified 13 documents for the regularisation of ‘bagair hukum’ cultivation. “Even if the farmers do not possess any of these documents, if he is able to prove that he is a resident of the village for the past 60 years, that will be enough for the regularisation of cultivation,” Mr. Thimmappa said.

To another question on the fate of the 43 new taluks announced by the previous government, Mr. Thimmappa said that the declaration of the new taluks had its own problems and the government would require additional funds for creating infrastructure there. There was also severe shortage of staff.