ITANAGAR, Mar 17: A land issue involving the Central Institute of Himalayan Culture Studies (CIHCS) and locals, which has been pending since long, has been resolved after it was agreed that a compensation of Rs 5.97 crore would be granted to an umbrella body of land owners by the Centre.
The stalemate was resolved following the intervention of Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu, a CMO report said.
Chairing a meeting with the CIHCS authorities and the land owners under the umbrella
of Singchung Village Council Land Management Committee (SVCLMC) here on Monday, Khandu had advised both parties to resolve the matter at the earliest, keeping in mind the importance of having the CIHCS at Dahung in West Kameng district.
With both parties mandating Khandu for a solution, it was resolved in the meeting that the compensation, amounting to Rs 5.97 crore, as assessed and submitted by the district administration and as decided by the Union Ministry of Culture, would be granted to the SVCLMC as per the Jhum Land Regulation, 1947.
No other terms and conditions would henceforth be legally binding on the CIHCS, the report said.
Khandu advised CIHCS director Gurmet Dorjey to immediately take up construction of boundary walls on the two plots of land under its occupation.
Responding to a proposal of Naresh Glow, former minister and SVCLMC chairman, the chief minister requested the committee to put forward a separate proposal for establishment of new schools in the area which, he assured, would be favourably considered by the state government provided the land is made available free of cost.
Glow had earlier suggested that, if possible, the existing land from where the CIHCS is currently functioning should be returned to the SVCLMC along with all infrastructure so that it could be utilised to run either a Ramakrishna Mission School or Vivekananda Kendriya Vidyalaya (VKV) for the benefit of Bugun community students.
SVCLMC advisor Sang Norbu Sarai emphasized that the CIHCS should carry out the terms and conditions that was initially agreed between the Buddhist Culture Preservation Society (BCPS), Bomdila and SVCLMC, Singchung while setting up the CIHCS at Dahung before its taking over by the union ministry.
He said, the SVCLMC had never asked the CIHCS to shift to some other place nor had it urged for compensation.
The compensation was an offer from the CIHCS at a later stage which “even now is not being insisted upon by the SVCLMC”, he added.
Meanwhile, the CIHCS director apprised everybody of the letter of the ministry in which it had communicated to the state chief secretary regarding its decision to provide Rs 5.97 crore as land compensation.
The director shared his vision of developing the CIHCS into a Deemed-to-be-University in future, with provisions for enrolling around 4,000 students and creating around 400 jobs of various categories.
However, he noted that such a vision would materialize only if the land issue is resolved once and for all, claiming that the only way of resolving the issue was acceptance of land compensation as decided by the ministry, the report added. (PTI)
