A joint survey being undertaken by the Revenue and Forest and Wildlife Departments as part of regularising all forest land in Kozhikode district that had been encroached upon before January 1, 1977 will be completed by December 31.
This follows disputes between 61 hill farmers, in whose possession the forestland is, and the Forest Department over a long period of time. “As of now, the district administration has settled the disputes of eight farmers and survey has been completed in six cases,” said official sources.
Survey and verification had to be completed in 50 acres of forestland occupied by the remaining 47 farmers in the villages of Koorachundu and Kanthaladu in the hill regions of the district, said Kozhikode Divisional Forest Officer K.K. Sunilkumar.
The farmers at Koorachundu and Kanthaladu villages in Koorachundu grama panchayat have been stopped by the Forest Department from remitting land tax at the village office since they had allegedly encroached forestlands in the region.
Under the banner of the Malayora Karshaka Action Committee, they had earlier submitted to the State government a list of 126 farmers who had been cultivating crops on land demarcated as forestland.
The government had worked out a solution. But, only 77 farmers who occupied land in three villages of Koorachundu grama panchayat before January 1, 1977, would be able to own the land and remit taxes. However, the disputes in the region continued, said Mr. Sunilkumar.
Land recovery
He said the government had previously agreed in principle to allow the farmers to take into their possession the land under cultivation if the land had been occupied before January 1, 1977. But the land occupied by other farmers would certainly be recovered.
Mr. Sunilkumar said the government order of 1989 had allowed for a joint verification though the majority of farmers had objected to such a procedure. Now boundaries of forest land and cultivated land had to identified and demarcated. Incidentally a survey carried out in 1991-92 had found that about 50 farmers had encroached forestland after 1977, he said.