Chhattisgarh moots land reforms in rebel terrain

Bastar collector Amit Kataria took the initiative to digitalise land records in the district - infamous for Left Wing Extremism (LWE)

Vishwa Mandavi trekked miles barefoot to reach the block headquarters of Lohandiguda in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district, excited to get loan from a private bank to solemnise his daughter’s marriage with a bang coming winter.

The 60-year-old tribal was shattered when the banker refused the proposal on the ground that he did not possess the required land. The Rin Pustika (loan book for the villager) mentioned only three acres while he was the owner of over four acres in Belar village, about five kilometers from Lohandiguda in Bastar district.

The local team of the revenue department allegedly manipulated with the records and curtailed the area in the new account prepared last year. Mandavi is not the only person facing the problem. A large proportion of tribal population had been complaining on the line.

Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Bastar Collector Amit Kataria took the initiative to digitalise the entire land records in the district — infamous across the globe for Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The project started in January and was completed in record time. Last week, Chief Minister Raman Singh launched the online land record service in Bastar.

“The move is a big leap forward for land reform in Bastar,” Kataria told Business Standard. When the concept of digitalising the records clicked, the biggest hurdle was selecting a good software team to scan and make software, he said, adding that Raipur-based software company Computer Plus was assigned the project that was successfully completed.

The Chief Minister had asked the officials to follow the Bastar model in other districts. Land records of 598 villages, of which many are in the so-called liberated zone of Naxalites, has been compiled. At the click of the mouse provided internet facility, a villager could access the land record details from 1952. The software would be updated later to feed the records from 1930-32.

Since the tribals were not aware of the exact details of their land, they were being exploited. They were deprived of the land rights. The Naxalites used the opportunity when they first stepped-in in Bastar in the late seventies. On the issue of tribe land reform, the rebels expanded its network in Bastar that had emerged as the country’s biggest internal security threat. The villagers, however, could not get any benefit even from rebels’ movement.

Mandavi had collected the record availing the service. The record from 1952 underlined that he had over four acres. He would be soon moving to the court of law to challenge the new account and get it updated.