On the last session of the Goa Legislative Assembly, a Bill has been passed to amend the Goa Revenue Code 1968, to enable the competent authorities to finalise the pending cases of provisional allotments of Government land, Most of those cases are known as ‘Alvaras’, as they were granted by a document called by that name.
There are in Goa, several thousands of such provisional allotments, that were made under the old Portuguese decree no-3602, dated 24-11-1917 and also under the Portaria no-153 of 1906, and all those cases, remained without being regularised for several decades . In Sattari itself, there were about 3000 cases pending and about 2000 in Sanguem taluka. In Sanguem there are cases also under different schemes. All those provisional grants are now shown as ‘encroachments’ in survey records, for technical reasons.
Some 20 years ago, when Dr Wilfred Mesquita was the Revenue Minister, he made the first attempt to solve that problem, by trying to amend suitably the said Land Revenue Code. At that time Pratapsingh Rane was the Chief Minister. Interestingly, even the necessary draft Bill was prepared.
That Bill had in view the disposal not only of the cases under the said Decree, but also others provisional grants made based on various schemes such as the one known as MEIAS. As that Bill was going to affect a great numbers of land occupants, and it was an important Bill its draft was, if not mistaken, published in the Government Gazette inviting objections from the public.
With that proposed amendment it was initially intended to solve also the problem of cumerim cultivators. In the said decree there are provisions regarding the allotment of land for Cumerim cultivation; but that system of cultivation was abolished by the previous Portuguese government and the first Chief Minister of Goa, Dayanand Bandodcar had allowed the respective cultivators to use the same land for caju plantation, but no orders were issued for its regularisation, in spite of having constituted a high level committee to deal with that matter.
Reasons for allotting vast areas of land
In the various talukas of Goa, known ,as ‘ Novas Conquitas’, specially in the areas of Embarbacem, Astragar, torofo of Cotigao and other villages, there were vast undeveloped areas, where one had to face many difficulties to bring the land under cultivation or make it suitable for construction of houses for people to settle there.
As an encouragement for the people to come forward to take up the development of that type of land, there were provisions in the said decree to allot vast area to an individual. It is to be noted that, in many cases, the minimum area that could be allotted to a person under the Decree, was almost equal to the maximum that normally can be given under the Land Revenue Code 1968.
As per the said decree, the allotments had to be made provisionally for a period of ten years, during which, the Alvara holders had to fulfil several conditions that where stipulated in the document of grant itself, such as plantation of certain numbers of trees and execution of some works of development .At the end of that period and after fulfilling all the conditions, the provisional grant could be regularised. But in March 1971, the Goa Land Revenue Code, 1986 came into force, replacing the said Decree and in the said Code no provision was made, prescribing as to how to deal with thousands of cases initiated under the said repealed Decree and its provisional holders had not fulfilled the conditions stipulated, as they had some more years ahead of them to do what was required to be done to be entitled for permanent possessions of the land. Most of the pending cases to be regularised were of this type
The scheme of as MEIAS (Halves) referred earlier, and under which the regularization of the land allotted was pending, is an interesting one. It was implemented in the areas of Assolna, Velim and many surrounding villages. As per that scheme the Government was allotting plots, mainly for agricultural purposes and the interest party had to pay, whatever was due, only in respect of half of the area of to be allotted and the other half was granted free of cost. So the scheme was known as MEIAS. The main aim of that scheme was to prevent the local persons from abandoning the fields and going for employment in places out of Goa.
Dr Mesquita, who was fully aware of the problem of provisional holders of land initiated, as said earlier, the process to solve those cases. As a first step, he constituted one Special Cell and this writer had the privilege to be one of its member, along with Lino Paes, retired Director of Land Survey and the late Adv Naraina Sardessai, then Administrator of Comunidade of Tiswadi, to study all the cases of the provisional allotments of the government land made under the said decree and under earlier rules in force It was also directed to study the cases of Cumeri cultivators.
As the Cell was functioning in the premises of the Land Survey Department, where the copies of all the Alvaras issued were available, its members were able to find out all the required information about the allotments made. This has facilitated its members to contact the original holders or their heirs, whenever needed, and get all the details. Based on the survey records, namely the forms 1 & 14, the existence of the encroachments, if any, could be detected and in fact, there were many such cases.
In all the inspections that were carried out ,during more than two years, the members were assisted by a senior representative of the Forest Department, because there were reports, that in certain part of the plots, there were areas of the Forest Department involved To locate such plots or areas, the presence of the representative of that Department was of a great help.
Most of the Alvara holders, that were contacted , had assured that they will pay the arrears of the rent, to be determined, for the previous ten years and that, thereafter they will all get the same revised as per prevailing value as on 1971.
Based on the information gather during the inspections and the enquiries carried out, the Cell submitted in June 1998 detailed report of each provisional land hold with all required details.
It was recommended that only the cases where the names of the respective land holders or their heirs, figure in the survey records, those may be regularised. This was suggested as there were cases where the land provisionally allotted was sold without being regularised.
Thereafter the draft Bill, to introduce suitable amendments to the said Code, was prepared by the Government. After its approval by the Cabinet, while briefing to the press, all the recommendations made by the said Cell were made public.
Just few days before that draft Bill was forwarded to the Goa Legislative Assembly, a movement had started for the formation of the new Government which actually took place and so the said Bill could not be taken up.
Had the Bill being passed, besides solving the pending cases, the Government would have recovered some crores of rupees and thereafter it would have contributed to create a new source of revenue.
Now the much required Bill has been passed which was a needed step to solve the problem and benefit thousands of land holders. It appears that the new Bill now approved, is different from the one drafted in 1998. It is seen from press reports that the effect of the amendments now introduced will cover many areas not included earlier and thus the holders of land of the new areas are also going to be benefited.
(The author, after his retirement from the post of Additional Collector of Goa, was asked to be part of a Special Cell to study and propose measures to solve the problem of the Alvara holders and that of Cumeri cultivators)
