By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, December 30, 2015 : The representatives of community based organizations from across Odisha will soon submit a memorandum to president Pranab Mukherjee to return back “The Odisha Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill, 2015” describing it anti-poor and draconian.

“If the Bill is allowed to be enacted, it would deliver a death blow to the principles of social justice, the foundation of our Constitution”, the draft memorandum being circulated in social media said.

Stating that he Bill was passed in a lackadaisical manner by Odisha Legislative Assembly on last 27 August 2015 in the absence of the Opposition members, the Bill posed a serious threat to the existing rights of the poor landless persons to their entitlement to allocation of available plots of Government land under their occupation, for the purpose of homestead and/or cultivation.

“Needless to say, the Bill if enacted into law would straightaway deprive the marginalised sections of population such as scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, landless agricultural labour, slum dwellers, fisherfolks and daily wage earners, of their habitation and livelihood”, it said.

The definitions of Land Grabbing and Land Grabber given in the said bill, do not distinguish between a hapless person who is in possession of public land for one’s bare survival or livelihood, and a person having vested interests who has encroached the public land to meet his insatiable greed, the draft Memo said.

“Instead of targeting the land grabbers having vested interests backed by political and bureaucratic clout, the Bill seems to target the poor landless persons who under compelling circumstances of chronic poverty, homelessness and landlessness have no other go than occupy the Government land for their bare survival and livelihood. Besides the Bill would create a catastrophic situation for all marginalized sections of society who critically depend on common (government) land to maintain their life and livelihood”, it said.

The state government has not yet regularized the government land occupied by the landless and marginalized people for their shelter or livelihood as required under the Odisha Prevention of Land Encroachment Act (OPLE) 1972, Odisha Government Land Settlement Act (OGLS) 1962 and Odisha Land Reforms Act (OLR) 1960.

The Memo further said, the Government has also conspicuously failed to distribute ceiling surplus land among the landless poor and other marginal sections of society as required under OLR Act 1960.

“On the other hand, the very plots of land which being demarcated as ceiling surplus were officially distributed to the landless and homesteadless persons have been found either non-usable or kept pending sub-judice for decades in different courts. Besides a large chunk of the ceiling surplus land and Bhoodan land, officially distributed to the eligible beneficiaries are still under the de facto use and control by the erstwhile landlords”, it added.

It gave the example of the much hyped schemes for allotment of government waste land to the homesteadless and landless families, such as ‘Vasundhara’ and ‘Mo Jami Mo Diha’, launched since 2007-08 stating that these schemes have not made any headway worth the name.

The Memo also strongly objected to a provision in Bill according to which any act of unauthorized occupation a cognizable offense and the concerned offender, dubbed as a criminal would be subject to arrest by police without warrant, followed by imprisonment. Even an organization and its members who might advocate and fight for the cause of such landless ‘unauthorized occupants’ could be dragged to the police custody without any court warrant.

“To add salt to the injury, the Bill places the burden of proof on the person accused of unauthorized occupant even if the latter might be a landless and homesteadless person. The Bill further provides for the speedy enquiry, trial and punishment in respect of such cases by the Special Courts to be constituted for the purpose, even if the alleged offender might be the poorest of the poor on account of his landlessness or homesteadlessness”, it explained.