Udhagamandam: A three-member committee has been formed as per a government order (D)73 dated March 19,
2018, to complete the pending settlement work of Gudalur Janamam lands without affecting the bona-fide interests of local inhabitants especially tribals. The government formed the committee based on a request made by Nilgiris collector J Innocent Divya at the collectors’ meeting held in Chennai recently.
“The lessees have complicated the janmam land issue by filing petitions in several courts. It is really a challenging task for the administration to settle the issue. Hence, a request for a committee to settle the pending janmam lands was made in the collectors’ meet held in March,” Divya said.
The three-member committee comprises a senior IAS officer, a forest officer and a revenue officer, who have worked earlier in the Nilgiris district.
As per the GO, the committee will verify violations by nine major estates, including Manjushree Plantations Limited, to the tune of 15,430 acres through felling of virgin evergreen forest for expansion of plantations as mentioned in the amicus curiae’s report.
Among other tasks, the committee shall watch the progress of settlement work by the janmam land settlement officers in order to ensure timely completion of long pending work of settlement.
The GO also stresses that the committee should verify the violations by plantation estates in destroying the natural forests in spite of the undertaking given by them before the Supreme Court.
The committee shall also evolve a process and identify the exact number of encroachers and the nature of encroachment in the lands classified as plantation leases under section 17 of the Tamil Nadu Gudalur Janmam Act, 1969. It would suggest methods to deal with these different types of encroachers.
The committee has been given six months’ time to complete the task by submitting the progress report to the chief secretary every month.
The original janmies had leased out an extent of 41,768 acres of land, out of 80,000 acres, for the purpose of raising plantations on a long term basis.