ITANAGAR, Sep 20: The Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has strongly opposed the Arunachal Pradesh (Land Settlement and Records) (Amendment) Act, 2018, terming it “oppressive and anti-people” months after it was passed in the legislative assembly.
The amended act was passed by the state assembly on 7 May.
Urging Chief Minister Pema Khandu “not to be an oppressor,” the Congress urged the people of the state to not comply with the act and “refrain from paying revenue till the rate of land revenue decreases to payable amount.”
It claimed that the public were “not kept in light” before passing the amendment bill in the assembly, and condemned the state BJP government for “conspiring against the common mass and poor people of the state in the pretext of APLS&RA Act 2018.”
The APCC said an eight-member committee held threadbare discussion and interacted with people of different strata of the society on the new land revenue act.
“The state BJP government has given a longest jump in the history of Arunachal Pradesh by catapulting land revenue to Rs 1000 from Rs 5 per sq mtr for commercial land and Rs 600 from Rs 2 for residential land,” it said, adding that “land revenue depends on the market value and the facilities available in that area, whereas Arunachal Pradesh, with low-cut source of commercial undertakings, is barely sustaining the denizens when unemployment and poverty are at their peak.”
It demanded to know where the state government would levy land revenue “when the standard of living, commercial and residential properties are scanty and low in production.
“The state government cannot exercise constitutional function to execute injustice without accurate situational analysis,” it said, adding that land revenue, “a small amount of tax collected on land, is not a system to loot the people.”
