Jamshedpur: Fate of 12 lakh people living on Tata Steel leased land uncertain

JAMSHEDPUR: The state cabinet’s decision on Wednesday to table a domicile policy based on 1932 land records in the next assembly session, is giving sleepless nights to more than 12 lakh people, living in sub-leased areas under the Tata Steel command area in Jamshedpur for more than 60 years.
Under the sub-lease policy, Tata Steel allowed its employees to construct residential houses. The owners of these houses pay taxes to Tata Steel but do not have the land documents on which their houses have been constructed.
The steel major has taken the land on lease from the then government for 99 years for setting up its factory, which was again renewed for 30 years (in 1996) and sub-leased it to its employees for residential houses and to individuals for setting up shops in market areas.
These 12 lakh people have spent fortunes in building their houses, most of which are in the posh areas of the city, where property value runs into several crores at the current market rate. They are now wondering what will happen if the cut-off date of 1932 under the new domicile policy is passed by the assembly.
An octogenarian resident of the area, Namita Bose, whose late husband and father-in-law were employees of Tata Steel and have a palatial house on the Sonari sub-leased land, asked whether she will be considered an outsider in the place where she has been living for the past 60 years. She lamented that after her marriage, she has been residing in this house and she only has voter and Aadhaar cards of her current address.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Tata Steel employee Rajat Verma, whose father and grandfather, too, were in the company. His grandfather, Suresh Verma, had come to the Steel City from Motihari in Bihar in the 1960s and had taken up a job with Tata Steel after which he built a two-storied house on the sub-leased land of the Sakchi area in 1974. Rajat wondered after living here for so many decades, whether Hemant Soren’s decision has made him an outsider. He further said when his ancestors settled in Jamshedpur there was no Jharkhand. He lamented as they lived on sub-leased land, they have no documents to prove that they are also the “Moolvasi” of this place.
Several lakhs of people living in 107 “bustees” in Jamshedpur, which were earlier under the Tata Steel command area but are now outside of it after the last lease renewal by the company did not include them.
Interestingly, many living on these Tata Steel sub-leased land and the 107 “bustees” are Adivasis of this area but they have no land documents to prove their domicile.