Non-tribal people living in the tribal mandals of Adilabad district have thrown light once again on the AP Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation 1 of 1970, which envisages safeguarding the interests of tribal people in the Agency tracts of Telangana. They made the demand for relaxation of the Regulation in a memorandum to Utnoor RDO after the district police cancelled permission for a public meeting convened under the banner of the Agency SC, ST, BC and Minority Aikya Vedika at Utnoor, the hub of tribal affairs.
The non-tribals want government to allow transfer of land and other immovable properties between non tribals and non tribals and providing pahanis on lands being tilled by the non-tribals in the Agency area since long. The LTR 1/70, as it is commonly known, bars all such transactions, except those taking place between tribals and tribals.
The Act in question came into being in the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh as a result of non-tribal immigrants dispossessing tribals of huge extents of land through sheer exploitation.
In her paper published towards the end of the last century, C. von. Furer-Haimendorf: Half a century of his imprint on Tribal Welfare in Andhra Pradesh , Hyderabad-based social anthropologist Urmila Pingle, however says exploitation was already visible in the 1940s as Gonds were ousted from the lands cultivated by their forefathers. She also identifies the cause of struggle by Gond martyr Kumram Bheem’s to be land issues of Adivasis.
