Tribals take possession of lands

January 31, 1997

Jangreddygudem :

The Tribals announced that they were occupying the lands as the officials wer showing negligent attitude in handing over the same to them, though the court gave an order in their favour.

The Girijana Bhooporata Committee has taken possession of 90 acres of land which was under the occupation of Maddipati Someswara Rao and Maddipati Koteswara Rao and M Chittiraju in Doramamidi village and haded it over to KomaramSuraiah and Komaram Mallaih of Vippalapadu village. The Tribals however agreed to allow the ryots who were cultivating the lands to take over the standing crop.

THE HINDU 11-02-1997.

Move to review tribal laws opposed

From Our Staff Reporter

ELURU, Feb. 10.

The Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Commit­tee (APCLC) will write an 'open letter' questioning the Chief Minister's reported slant to ease 'he tribal laws for the benefit of the poor among non-tribals.

Talking to reporters here on Sunday, the APCLC secretary, Dr. K. Balagopal, said the open letter would be in response to Mr. Chandrababu Naidu's reported statement at Bhadrachalam before the Lok Sabha elections that a review of the tribal laws, especially the regulation of l970, was warranted.

Opposing any attempt to amend the tribal laws, he recalled that the Supreme Court had nullified the Andhra Pradesh Government's attempt to needle with the tribal laws in 1980. He argued that a non-tribal, including a Scheduled Caste person, could make a living in any part of where the lift of a tribal was essential Revenue Departments would prove to be a disad­vantage for tribals as they had no tradition of preserving documents. Lok Adalats should be constituted to examine the cases and oral evi­dence should be taken into account. He felt that bringing down the present ceiling limit from 40 acres to 14 acres would pave the way for provid­ing land to tribals in the agency.

He wanted the Government to implement without delay the act which extended the new panchayat set-up to tribal areas, and said Sec­tion 4 of the Act provided for some sort of auton­omy to tribal villages. The step would address to the new-found slogan of Godavari valley tribals of "Maa Oooru Maa Rajyam'. (Our village our law).

Speakers at a meeting arranged by the And­hra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee on Sun­day opposed the death penalty on the convicts of Chilakaluripet bus passengers carnage case and.

Chillakaluripet case as the rarest case. Death sentence was executed last in the State 18 years ago and since then 45,000 murders had been committed at the rate of 2,500 per year and no case attracted, the attention of courts to execute death sentence.

Admitting that the crime perpetrated by Vijayavardhan Rao and Chalapathi Rao was hei­nous, be argued that capital punishment was not a solution to bring down crime rate. He reasoned that the crime was unintentional and the duo was not prepared to kill so many people. A case under Section 304 of Indian Penal code identifying it as culpable homicide not amount­ing to murder could have been more apt.

Dr. Balagopal observed that society and indi­vidual were equally responsible for a crime and both deserved punishment. In the present case, it could have been compensation to the victims from society and punishment to the offenders. But the whole responsibility was placed on the perpetrators. Analysing mass attitude, Dr.Bala-,-eoDal explained that certain crimes perpetrated

Allow surveyors to assess agency land, tribals told

The Indian Express, February 12, 1997.

Kangalavarigudem ( West Godavari ), Feb 11 : "Certain vested interests are cashing in on the ignorance of the tribals by instigating them. It has come to notice that the gullible folk are involving in such unlawful activities like harvesting and trampling on the crops belonging to non-tribals. The law will take its own course if they continue such misdeeds," warned district Collector, D. Ramakrishna, addressing the clansmen here yesterday evening.

The Collector, along with Superintendent of Police M. Punna Rao and Joint Collector M. Subrahmaniam, rushed to the agency following reports about tribals obstructing non-tribals to carryout watering of tobacco crop in about 1,800 acres in the agency area.

He said it had come to the notice of the administration that some 'outsiders' were collecting funds from the tribals. Promising that they would assist them in getting back the land, they had been encouraging the tribals to obstruct the survey and continue the fight with more intensity. But, the poor lot were not in a position to realize that only they would be the ultimate losers, he regretted.

Except the government none could help the tribals in sorting out the problem. If anyone comes forward to buy or donate an acre of land to tribals, the administration was ready to bow down before him, the Collector challenged.

Referring to conduct of the survey, the Collector said the tribals should repose confidence as the special duty collectors were non-locals under whose supervision the survey was being conducted. The problem could not be settled until they allow the officials to continue the survey, he said.

Land Pattas : Declaring that he himself would hand over pattas to tribals on February 17 in regard to the already identified 121.78 acres of assessed waste dry (AWD) land possessed violating the Land Ceiling Act and poramboke land at Lakshmudugudem and Kommugudem in Buttayagudem mandal, the Collector asked the clansmen to submit a list of selected beneficiaries from among them a day before.

The pattas would be distributed 'then and there' during the course of the survey. This apart, the land assigned to the tribals would be identified and handed over to them by the surveyors, the Collector said.

Earlier, the Collector held discussions on the similar issues with the tribals at Reddyganapavaram. He appealed to the tribals to cooperate with the surveyors in making the assessment of the land.

Tribal leaders Madakam Venkateswara Rao and Kaki Balaraju raised doubts over the possession of 1,000 acres by a non-tribal Chintalapudi Bapiraju under two benami names. They said as per the official records at Polavaram MRO office, only 800 acres were assigned to Bapiraju during 1951, that too, in his own name. Whereas the same records showed the land in the names of two persons, they said and demanded that the balance of 200 acres be identified and distributed among them. Then the Collector ordered the deputy collector concerned to inquire into the matter.

While the officials were returning to the district headquarters, they were stopped by non-tribals at Kommugudem. Pleading with the officials to provide security for their crops. Y. Radhakrishna Murthy, Y. Somaraju and other non-tribal farmers assured that they would vacate the excess land identified in the survey.