Agencies:

J&K parties reject govt assertion that farm land won't be transferred to people from outside UT

Srinagar
November 3, 2020

The People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration on Tuesday rejected the Jammu and Kashmir Government's assertion that the bulk of the agricultural land will not be transferred to people from outside the Union Territory. The PAGD termed the earlier land laws of Jammu and Kashmir the most progressive, pro-people and pro-farmer in the entire Indian subcontinent.

"PAGD rejects the statement of official spokesman on 26th October MHA order as bizarre attempt to distort facts, weave lies and mislead people," the seven party alliance said in a statement. It said the real object of the repeal of the basic land laws and the massive amendments to the other laws is to push in and implement the agenda of effecting "demographic change and disempowering" the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

"Jammu and Kashmir was the first in the country to implement the concept of land to tiller by enacting Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1952 followed by Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, restricting the land holding to twelve and half acres and ending the exploitative practice of absentee landlordism and whosoever calls it archaic, would be guilty of ignorance of the history of Jammu and Kashmir.

"It is because of the timely land reforms that no starvation deaths occur in Jammu and Kashmir, no farmer suicides have been ever reported from Jammu and Kashmir and everyone in Jammu and Kashmir has available three fundamental necessities - food, clothing and shelter, the position that is now sought to be reversed by making massive assault on the land law regime," the statement added.

The PAGD asked how the Alienation of Land Act could be termed archaic when it prohibited transfer of land to a non-state subject thus protecting the interests of the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir and at the same time, made a provision for transfer of land by mortgage to organizations like Industrial Development Bank of India, Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India to keep pace with industrial development.