Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path - II
When British set the current form of land administration they took a lot of information from the existing chieftans set by earlier system i.e. from the likes of karnams and maniyams. They provided the vital land classification (viz. fertile land, cultivable land, barren land etc.) and owner-ship information. As per the current system, the revenue department of the government is the custodian of all lands in the state. So the TamilNadu (TN) revenue dept is the custodian of the land including the forest area of TN. The revenue department has officers from Village Administrative Officers (VAOs), to tehsil/taluk head popularly known as Thasildhaar to Revenue Division officers (RDOs) comprising of a few taluks, to Divisional Revenue Officers (DROs) to Collectors/District Administrator.
VAOs with the help of erstwhile Karnams & Maniyams maintain village level land records -- nanjai(read as nun-jai), punjai (read as pun with the 'un' like in 'fun' and 'jai') these two being fertile lands whose irrigation was done through govt. source of water viz. river, river-channels, lakes, dams etc. Hence these lands are termed as "wet lands". There is another category of cultivated land. It is called as maanaavaari. Maanaavaari land is cultivated purely based on the rain water that is fallen directly into the land and not irrigated through govt. source of water. Hence they are called as "not-wet" lands. They are also cultivated lands and hence are fertile lands. When any of the fertile land (wet or not-wet) is not cultivated for a period (of 6 months or so) continously for some reason (the most prominent in TN is maaanaavaari becoming uncultivated due to lack of rain) then it falls under the category called tharisu (cultivable but not recently utilised). The revenue dept. had different slabs of land taxes for these different type of lands. The very classification of lands into such categories is mainly for fixing the different tax slabs, which are widely known as theervai. This is different classification of agricultural lands. If the land is not agricultural, ie. if it is barren land (non cultivable/cultivated) land, then it is called as porambokku. Porambokku is govt. held barren land. There could be privately held such barren land as well. Apart from these another classification is done for forest area whose management/administration is done by forest department (transfer of custody happens here from revenue to forest, I guess). Also land area that is based on water storage like lake area, pond area etc. are also done. In addition to that we have land identification of sea side as well. Even though this classification is done akin to the thamizh traditional classification of kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai, the focus is more on a higher level look of whether it is agricultural(including fertile and cultivable but recently not cultivated) (or) forest (or) barren (or) water catchment land. Such classification is done for govt. held or private held land. Ideally it is the porambokku, the barren land, that is, and that has to be, used for allocation of any form of building except on some extreme circumstances (eg. if govt. finds petroleum under a vast stretch of agricultural land then through proper decree they transfer it from agricultural tag to building tag for special purpose).
Thus is the intent, but due to various reasons -- from social value degradation to natural calamity -- many a water storage lands (i.e. land that is tagged as lake) are being transferred into porambokku category either officially by govt. or coersively by people by illegally occupying and going through politicians route.
For our area of interest let us stick to the barren land (porambokku and privately held barrent) and see the metamorphosis of it from barren to a land for residential purpose to be bought by an individual buyer.
...to be continued
back
VAOs with the help of erstwhile Karnams & Maniyams maintain village level land records -- nanjai(read as nun-jai), punjai (read as pun with the 'un' like in 'fun' and 'jai') these two being fertile lands whose irrigation was done through govt. source of water viz. river, river-channels, lakes, dams etc. Hence these lands are termed as "wet lands". There is another category of cultivated land. It is called as maanaavaari. Maanaavaari land is cultivated purely based on the rain water that is fallen directly into the land and not irrigated through govt. source of water. Hence they are called as "not-wet" lands. They are also cultivated lands and hence are fertile lands. When any of the fertile land (wet or not-wet) is not cultivated for a period (of 6 months or so) continously for some reason (the most prominent in TN is maaanaavaari becoming uncultivated due to lack of rain) then it falls under the category called tharisu (cultivable but not recently utilised). The revenue dept. had different slabs of land taxes for these different type of lands. The very classification of lands into such categories is mainly for fixing the different tax slabs, which are widely known as theervai. This is different classification of agricultural lands. If the land is not agricultural, ie. if it is barren land (non cultivable/cultivated) land, then it is called as porambokku. Porambokku is govt. held barren land. There could be privately held such barren land as well. Apart from these another classification is done for forest area whose management/administration is done by forest department (transfer of custody happens here from revenue to forest, I guess). Also land area that is based on water storage like lake area, pond area etc. are also done. In addition to that we have land identification of sea side as well. Even though this classification is done akin to the thamizh traditional classification of kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai, the focus is more on a higher level look of whether it is agricultural(including fertile and cultivable but recently not cultivated) (or) forest (or) barren (or) water catchment land. Such classification is done for govt. held or private held land. Ideally it is the porambokku, the barren land, that is, and that has to be, used for allocation of any form of building except on some extreme circumstances (eg. if govt. finds petroleum under a vast stretch of agricultural land then through proper decree they transfer it from agricultural tag to building tag for special purpose).
Thus is the intent, but due to various reasons -- from social value degradation to natural calamity -- many a water storage lands (i.e. land that is tagged as lake) are being transferred into porambokku category either officially by govt. or coersively by people by illegally occupying and going through politicians route.
For our area of interest let us stick to the barren land (porambokku and privately held barrent) and see the metamorphosis of it from barren to a land for residential purpose to be bought by an individual buyer.
...to be continued
back
posted by Kupps at 3:38 AM
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