Land patta given to 1.30 indigenous people in 5 years: Assam minister

Guwahati, Sep 15 (PTI) The Assam government has provided land patta’ (ownership document) to more than 1.30 lakh people in the last five years, the assembly was informed on Friday.

Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Jogen Mogan, replying to a question by BJP MLA Terash Gowalla, said the land ownership is being given to indigenous people as per the Assam Land Policy, 2019.

Accordingly, 1,34,532 landless people have been granted land ownership rights in the last five years, he said.

Of these, the highest number of 16,441 were given in Dhemaji district, followed by 15,360 in Jorhat and 12,389 in Dibrugarh.

In reply to another question by the Congress’ Bhaskar Jyoti Baruah, Mohan said there are 48 declared tribal belts and blocks in the state, of which 19 are in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) and the rest in non-scheduled areas.

The BTR is an autonomous division created under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution for the Bodo-dominated areas of Assam. BTR comprises four districts – Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri.

The land area of the tribal belts and blocks in BTR is 36,04,447 bighas, and in non-scheduled areas, it is 51,47,806 bighas.