Bhoodan Board reconstituted

Focus is on retrieving lands under encroachment, says Minister

More than four years after the expiry of the term of the Bhoodan Board, the State government has reconstituted it with a chairperson and 12 members.

“The board was reconstituted recently. In many places, the donated lands have been under encroachment by affluent people. We will take steps to reclaim them and distribute them to the deserving poor,” Minister for Khadi & Village Industries Board and the Chairman of the Bhoodan Board G. Baskaran said . However, when asked about the delay in reconstituting the board and the quantum of lands presently under its custody, he said he was not aware of it since he was travelling.

Besides the Minister, who is the chairperson and the Director of Land Reforms [as the Board’s Member Secretary], the Secretary to the Revenue and Disaster Management Department, the Commissioner for Land Reforms, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and the Director of Horticulture and Plantation Crops are the other official members of the board.

K.S. Neela, N. Sundarrajan, K.R. Kannan, S.S. Narayanan, S. Loganathan, K. Kaliyamoorthy and D. Lakshmikanthan are the non-official members of the reconstituted board.

The Tamil Nadu Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1958, was enacted to regulate lands received as donations for the Bhoodan Yagna Movement started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave, who undertook a tour by walk to several districts of the State between March 1956 and April 1957. The board’s function was to regulate and transfer the title of the lands to Bhoodan Board and to distribute the lands to the landless poor.

In 2006, the control of the board was transferred from the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department to the Land Reforms Department. Though the board was initially a five-member body, it was later expanded to 12 members in 2000. In 2009, the board was reconstituted with 14 members. The recently reconstituted board has 13 members.