Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas: An Action Plan

1. Institutional Empowerment;
a) Clear focus and dynamic coordination among all venerable institutions. Such institutions include,
• Tribes Advisory Council in States with Scheduled Tribes,
• National Commission for SCs
• National Commission for STs
• National Human Rights Commission,
• National Commission for Women,
• National Commission for the Rights of Children
• National Commission for Minorities and
• National Commission for Safai Karmachari

b) The Parliament should not neglect their work and recommendations.

c) Consultation among all these bodies and launching of joint initiatives for concerted and compulsory action on their joint recommendations, which should become mandatory for Chief Ministers.

d) Strengthen and re-engineer the Standing Parliamentary Committee on SC & ST.

e) National Commissions on SC & ST and National Human Rights Commission should be given power of investigation and to pass orders which they could enforce. Also, powers to make them effective in cases of violation of laws.

2. Stricter implementation of laws to check indebtedness and regulate credit through private sources.

3. All debt liabilities of weaker sections should be liquidated, in cases
a. wherein the debtor has paid an amount equivalent to the original principal amount and
b. wherein the intended benefit for which the loan was advanced has not accrued to the borrowers. The onus to establish that such benefit did accrue will be on the lending agency.The processes should be completed within six months after the notification.
c. The Government should specifically prohibit banks from putting tribal lands for auction to realize overdue debts.
d. The revival and restructuring of the Large Area Multi-purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS) and Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), with the specific targets of meeting all credit needs of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and weaker sections, should receive highest priority.

4. Cooperative banking structure which is the most accessible to the poorer sections should be urgently revamped and revitalized. The Central legislation to enable member-controlled and member-dominated cooperative societies.

5. Need for widespread provision of Grain Banks managed by Gram Sabhas in tribal areas

6. Special provision of long-term loans for purchase of land by assetless poor and resourceless families who are dependent upon agriculture for their livelihoods should be arranged.

7. NREGA should be intensively implemented in the indebtedness prone areas.

8. Forest produce should be provided a protective market by fixing minimum support price for various commodities, upgradation of traditional haats, and provision of modern storage facilities to avoid post harvest losses

9. The public distribution system should be specially designed for the specific requirements of the forest dwellers.

10. The State should support the expenses relating to the infrastructure, administration and operation of Tribal Development Corporations and cooperative marketing organizations such as Girijan Cooperative Corporation, Orissa Tribal Cooperative Corporation and Trifed in Government of India and they should not have monopoly rights to procurement.

11. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 needs to be strictly operationalised in letter and spirit.The clarifications in the draft rules circulated for this Act on 19th June, 2007 for certain difficult points like “other traditional rights”, “primarily reside in and dependent on forest or forest land”, “Rights to minor forest produce” etc. for removing any ambiguity and for easy implementation, which were summarily deleted in final notification of the Rules published on January 01, 2008, should be fully restored.

12. All petty cases registered under forest related legislations against the Tribal people and other poor persons should be withdrawn.

13. The social security recommendations for workers in the unorganized sectors recommended by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, which have been on anvil for last couple of years,should be implemented urgently by Central and State Governments with high priority in disturbed areas.

14. A serious effort must be made to continuously implement the land ceiling laws, so that the ceiling surplus land thereby obtained is made available for distribution amongst the most vulnerable sections of the landless poor. The various loop holes in the respective state to ceiling legislations have resulted in bogus claims aimed at evading the law. Such loopholes should be done away with and all cultivable land, irrespective of the legal form in which it is held, should be brought under ceiling laws.

15. The ceiling limit of lands which were earlier unirrigated but have become irrigated after the coming into effect of ceiling laws should be redetermined as per their existing status.In view of the increased land productivity under the impact of the new technology and improved agronomic practices, the ceiling limit should be refixed and implemented with retrospective effect.

16. Land Tribunals or Fast Track Courts under Article 323-B of the Constitution be set up for expeditious disposal of the ceiling cases.

17. The definition of ‘personal cultivation’ in the state tenancy law should be modified to eliminate absentee landlordism. The rights of tenants cultivating land of absentee landlords should be secured as per the prevailing provisions in the law.

18. Any transaction or transfer of land, beyond the ceiling limits,done with the intention of benefitting the transferor and / or members of his family with the intention of evading the ceiling laws, should be subject to scrutiny and annulment after due process.

19. There is an urgent need to review tenancy laws to protect the interests of tenants cultivating land of land owners on oral leases by providing them security of tenure and fare share of produce etc.

20. The interest of small and marginal farmers and tribal peasants would have to be protected against reverse tenancy.

21. All types of agricultural tenancies should be recorded and rights of tenants should be secured and the rights of such tenants should be fully secured through enforced land to the tiller policy and ensure accessibility of tenants to non-land inputs.

22. A policy and legal frame work should be put in place to enable small and marginal farmers to lease-in land with secure rights on a formal basis and at the same time to protect them against reverse tenancy of medium and large farmers and corporate agencies.

23. Modernisation of the land administration system, including a crash programme of updating of land records,computerisation of textual & spatial records, and integration of the registration office should be taken up on priority basis. Government of India should provide necessary funds for this purpose.

24. Where dispossession of land has taken place after possession was delivered, land should be restored to the allotees and proper entry made in the land records. Criminal cases should be filed against persons who had dispossessed them.

25. Where possession was not delivered after allotment of land this must be done without any delay and this must be entered in the land records.

26. Financial assistance should be provided to allotees for cultivation of land.

27. Where litigation has been responsible for loss of rights, free legal aid of beneficiary choice should be provided to the allotee to defend his rights.Several landless poor have been subsequently alienated from their lands. These lands should be restored to them and proper entries should be made.

28. Landless poor in occupation of Government land should not be treated as encroachers and should not be evicted ordinarily.

29. All eligible occupants should be regularized. In case of eviction alternative sites should be provided. Such provisions should be given statutory force. Often land assigned to the poor is illegally grabbed by the powerful.The government should restore possession to the poor. If there are lacunae in the law, these should be removed.

30. Comprehensive record of rights showing possession, ownership, etc. of all lands under cultivation should be prepared and made accessible to the people. The responsibility of the state to regularly update land records should be backed up by a law involving participatory and transparent mode of implementation.

31. Effective implementation and plugging the loopholes in the laws prohibiting transfer of adivasi lands to non-adivasis and acquisition of land by nonadivasis in Fifth Schedule areas, where such laws exist.

32. The above loopholes are adequately documented state wise but states have not amended their laws to remove them and strengthen protective measures against alienation of tribal land. This must be done as a priority national programme and action taken regularly to monitor its progress.Thereafter, all cases decided against all tribals must be reopened and disposed of afresh.

33. All the pending cases should be decided expeditiously and all alienated lands should be restored to Adivasis in a time bound manner.

34. The provisions of PESA relating to the power of the Gram Sabha in the above regard must be fully incorporated in existing legislation.

35. States having sizeable adivasi populations and not included in the Fifth Schedule shall enact suitable laws/amend existing laws for the protection of Adivais in the same manner as in the Fifth Schedule.

36. The land holdings of Scheduled Castes should be similarly protected against alienation of their land.

37. The entire Tribal Sub Plan area should be brought under the Fifth Schedule. A policy decision in this regard taken as far back as 1976 should be implemented without any further delay.

38. Whenever Government assigns land to the landless, or when pattas are given under some settlement regulations, such assignment deeds and patta shall be jointly given in the name of the husband and wife, in order to effectively protect land rights of women. Where land records are been updated, the rights of women members of the family must be recorded along with those of male members.

39. Wherever any occupation group like fisherfolk, graziers, honey gatherers and the like had customary rights over Common Property Resources and other natural resources,such rights should be statutorily protected and properly recorded and user pattas should be issued jointly for husband and wife and for female headed households.

40. Lands and/or natural resources initially occupied by eligible persons through people’s action should be statutorily regularised and owners should be compensated, whereverlegally due.

41. The effective implementation of land reforms laws should be prioritised through following measures:

a) A time bound survey is needed of all land under cultivation of SCs/STs culminating in (i) grant of title to those who do not have title,(ii) identification of land of STs alienated illegally, and restoration through Gram Sabhas under powers vested in them under provision of Panchayat Extension to the Scheduled Area) Act 1995) and in an analogous manner in non-Scheduled areas.

b) The above protective shield should be extended suitably to Scheduled Castes in all areas and Scheduled Tribes beyond the Scheduled Areas, through appropriate legal provision as recommended by various Commissions and as is prevalent in parts in some States (Rajasthan/M.P). Any move to relax or dilute existing protective measures in respect of these communities should be strongly opposed.

c) The Bhoodan land still in the possession of donors or their heirs should be taken possession of as per procedure prescribed in the concerned state laws for distribution to eligible beneficiaries as per priority laid down in the national land reforms policy.

d) Temple and other endowment lands beyond ceiling should be taken over by the state for redistribution.

e) Lands abandoned by mining projects or any other industrial activity should be restored as agricultural land and utilised for redistribution to eligible categories.

f) All homeless families should be given house sites of at least five cents along with financial assistance for constructing a livable house.

g) Urgent action is needed so that they are given priority in the allocation of not just a house under the Indira Awas Yojana, but also a piece of land on which that house is to be constructed. The existing laws which confer secure rights to landless persons living on the lands of land owners should be vigorously implemented.

h) Declare all small landless poor encroachers of government land as seemed to be having pattas on as is where is basis.

42. Restoration of Common Property Resources (CPRs) by some suitable schemes and programmes

43. Panchayats have to be empowered for effective management of CPRs with requisite autonomy, legal backing, adequate resources,provision of expertise and capacity building.

44. Incorporate within the law a provision for summary eviction of ineligible encroachers of CPRs.

45. MGNREGA should be implemented in a “mission mode” to do away with the dilatory and restrictive procedures of the secretariat.

46. The common guidelines for watershed development under consideration by National Rainfed Area Authority constitute an excellent base for participatory institution building, capability development and convergence of all activities pertaining to land and water.

47. Strengthening subsidiary and supportive activities in animal husbandry, fisheries, horticulture, sericulture and poultry through establishment of quality infrastructure, supportive technical services and efficient market linkages at the village or a cluster of village level.

48. Intensive capacity building is needed in modern advances in agriculture and allied sectors for selected young farmers, especially women in every village with Krishi Vigyan Kendras acting as nodal agencies for quality training and for dissemination of knowledge and skills.

49. Merging of MGNREGA and BRGF into one single programme in the LWE affected districts for better convergence of outcomes and with two focii should be administered by one ministry.

50. Providing quality technical/vocational training facilities for a cluster of 10 secondary schools offering training in a wide variety of local/specific needs;

51. Providing at least one residential high school each for boys and girls in these districts under the pattern of Navodaya Schools, together with Bridge school facilities for slow learners and out of school children.

52. Existing ‘ashram’ schools should be upgraded to standards. ‘Eklavya’ schools should be established in each block in these districts. Thus a structure of the follow kind would emerge: ‘ashram’ and vocational schools in a cluster; ‘Eklavya’ schools in a block, and navodaya schools in a district.

53. Discontinue commercial vending of liquor and other intoxicants in terms of the excise policy for tribal areas (1974) and institutionalize control of the Gram Saba over the preparation and use of traditional drinks.

54. Anganwadis should be provided on demand to SC and ST hamlets,which are the worst provided in terms of anganwadi centres in the country.

55. Electrify all villages and habitations through creation of Rural Electricity Distribution Backbone in each block and village electrification infrastructure with at least one distribution transformer in each village/habitation or Decentralized Distributed Generation (DDG), where grid supply is not feasible, together with electrification of all unelectrified below poverty line households.

56. The scope of the clause ‘resolution of disputes’ in section 4(d) of PESA should mean Nyaya Panchayats are constituted for Fifth Schedule area. Each State law should clearly indicate the types of disputes (civil, criminal,social marriages, etc). which Nyaya Panchayats should deal with.

57. It should be made obligatory for all concerned with management and working of forests to consult the Gram Sabha resulting in consent before taking up any operation in the geographical boundary of the village.

58. It shall be the duty of the State to ensure that the full value of the minor forest produce is made available to the primary collector with out any cuts of any description whatsoever.

59. The entire marketing and transportation cost from the collection centers, which shall not be beyond half-a-day march from the Gram Sabha, shall be borne by the State as a charge on the welfare activities in the Scheduled Areas.

60. All Utilisation Certificates pertaining to all projects should be validated by GS.