GUWAHATI: Assam will roll out a tribal land policy to allow each tribal family of the state to hold up to 50 bighas of land while the upper ceiling of 8 bighas under Assam Land Policy, 2019, will continue for the rest of the population.
"Our efforts are on to spell out a tribal land policy by October 2. This is in line with our budget proposal to secure rights of tribal people over their hereditary land," chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said here on Monday while launching "Mission Bhumiputra", a simplified and digital way to issue digitalised caste certificates to students.
There are over 38 lakh tribal people in the state, which is over 12% of the total population of the state according to the 2011 census. Nearly 95% of the tribal population lives in rural area.
The state adopted a new land policy in 2019 replacing a 30-year-old one to increase the maximum limit for allotment of arable and homestead lands to landless people to 7 bighas for agriculture purpose and 1 bigha for homestead purpose in rural areas of the state.
Caste certificate portal
Speaking on the "Mission Bhumiputra", Sarma said under the mission, the government will create two pillars. Henceforth, manual system of issuing caste certificates will cease to exist.
"From next year, students from Class VIII can apply for caste certificates through this portal which will also be linked with CM's dashboard to enable the Chief Minister's Office to monitor the entire process," Sarma said.
"From August 8 onwards, the deputy commissioners will give the format of applications for caste certificates to the headmasters of educational institutions" he added.
Certificates will be available in digi locker
Sarma further said, "The headmasters will fill up the application formats for their onward submission to the deputy commissioners who then will forward the applications to the boards of respective caste or tribe. The DC will then convene a meeting with the boards to decide on the protocol for issuing caste certificates to the students. If any doubt in the process crops up, the application may be sent for further verification," he added.
The certificates will be available in the digi locker under the IT Act with digitally signed by the respective deputy commissioners.
The chief minister also said that the government has laid emphasis on issuing EWS (economically weaker section) certificates as steps will be taken to issue such certificates to the students from Class VIII onwards.
Sarma said following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emphasis on "minimum government, maximum governance", the state government has been facilitating different public services seamlessly to the people.
