At long last, the Telangana government will begin distributing ownership documents, or pattas, to tribals who have been for decades into slash-and-burn cultivation on what are known as podu lands in forest areas.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao will formally inaugurate the distribution of the pattas on 30 June at Asifabad.
From the same day, ministers and MLAs in their respective districts and Assembly segments would begin distributing pattas to the eligible tribal podu farmers.
Though KCR had thought of kicking off the programme on 24 June, he could not get around to it.He decided on the fresh date keeping in view the fact that the district collectors and police chiefs would be required to attend review meetings with a delegation of the Election Commission which is visiting the state for the next two days.As Bakrid falls on 29 June, the chief minister will take up the distribution of podu pattas the next day, an official release said on Saturday, 24 June.
The distribution of podu pattas has been hanging fire ever since the formation of Telangana state.
The chief minister made promises on several occasions on this count.
Just this year, he had announced that the pattas would be distributed by the end of February, but it did not happen.In March, he yet again said the pattas would be soon distributed.
The delay, officials said, was because there is ambiguity over which forest land is with the Forest Department and which is with the tribals with podu cultivation rights.
As a result of the ambiguity, there have been frequent clashes between Forest Department officials and the tribals over the ownership of the lands they have been cultivating.
In March, the chief minister had said that since the preparation of the patta books was more or less ready, he wanted the officials to get around to the work of distributing them.The officials had said that pattas for four lakh acres were ready for distribution to 1.55 lakh tribals.
In February, he spoke at length in the Assembly, stating that the government was seized of the issue and had worked out a plan for the distribution of podu land pattas.
