Even as the tribal belt in former composite Adilabad district experiences the heat generated by podu land (forest land under cultivation by tribals) issue, the non-tribal people in the Agency areas have their anxiety levels raised thanks to a prospect of losing their property. The Special Deputy Collector (SDC) for cases under Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation Act 1959 (Amendment 1/1970), (LTR 1/70) has slapped notices on some of the non-tribals with regard to ownership of their property.
The LTR 1/70 bans all land transactions between tribals and non-tribals and non-tribals and non-tribals and was legislated with the intent of preventing exploitation of the gullible tribal people by non-tribals. The only exceptions are transfers which took place between tribals and non-tribals before December 1, 1963 and between non-tribals and non-tribals before February 3, 1970.
“We have issued some 35 notices to non-tribals relating to ownership of agriculture lands and immovable properties in the past few weeks, the latest of these being the notices serviced on 8 individuals of Indervelli mandal headquarters,” revealed SDC Rai Sidam Chitru. “Some of these notices were based on complaints while some others were issued taking note of the alleged ‘encroachments’ suo moto,” he added.
Liable to be resumed
It is assumed by law that all lands in the Agency areas belong to tribals with the only exception for non-tribals being those that they owned before these cut off dates under the LTR 1/70. “Any construction by non-tribals in the Agency areas would amount to violation of the LTR 1/70 if the concerned individual or family do so without valid documents and the property is liable to be resumed by the government,” Mr. Chitru explained as he went into the nitty gritty of the notices and related regulation.
“There are thousands of violations of the law that are going unnoticed and there is need for detecting all cases. We, however, support the action being initiated by the SDC,” observed Thodasam Ganesh, an Adivasi of Ichoda mandal headquarters.
The Amendment to the LTR was passed in February 1970 and the office of the SDC came into being in 1982 at Adilabad district headquarters. It was shifted to Utnoor two years later.
Tribal mandals
The SDC has jurisdiction over the nine purely tribal mandals located in Adilabad and Kumram Bheem Asifabad districts. It looks after cases originating in 646 Scheduled villages and others where the Integrated Tribal Development Agency has its jurisdiction.
Since inception of the office of the SDC a total of 8,524 cases of violation of LTR 1/70 were detected involving an extent of 56,756 acre while 4,356 of these were decided in favour of tribals covering an extent of 28,619 acres of land. Nearly 24,000 acres of land has been restored to tribals while 597 cases related with 3,479 acres of land are still pending.
