dehradun

Updated: Sep 04, 2017 20:19 IST

The Uttarakhand government is gearing up to start the process of land consolidation soon from native villages of chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath. The exercise will be the first since the state’s formation in 2000.

“We also plan to amend the existing land consolidation law so that the partial and voluntary land consolidation that we seek to introduce could be legalised,” agriculture minister Subodh Uniyal told HT.

“The proposed law would be introduced soon but it will be executed only after hill farmers are aware of how land consolidation is going to lessen their drudgery and boost their economy.”

In that connection, he said, a plan was afoot to launch a massive awareness campaign. “The step to initiate the land consolidation process from the villages our two high profile (BJP) leaders - Rawat and Adityanath - belong to, is part of our soon-to-start publicity campaign,” he said.

Rawat hails from Khairasain in Pauri district while Adityanath is from Panchur, a mountain hamlet that also falls in the same district.

Then there are two other villages from where the land consolidation process will be simultaneously started. One of these is Sediakhal which is the native place of tourism minister Satpal Maharaj.

“The other village to be picked to initiate that (land consolidation) process will be identified from the constituency I represent,” Uniyal said referring to Narendra Nagar.

Apart from choosing villages of high profile politicians for consolidation the state government would also initiate a campaign to publicise that process in the entire hill region of the state.

“The campaign has been necessitated by the sheer ignorance of most hill farmers about the multiple benefits associated with consolidation of their scattered land holdings,” Uniyal said.

The process would help lessen the drudgery that involved hill farming, thanks to small, terraced and scattered land holdings in the hills. “The process will also save the precious time the hill farmers’ are forced to waste while traversing long distances to be able to till their scattered land holdings,” he said.

“The best part of it all is that consolidation would also help enhance their income considerably as their land holdings wouldn’t be scattered,” he said.

“Hill farmers would be shown a documentary in which all-encompassing benefits of land consolidation would be projected,” the minister said.

“Besides, meetings will also be organised in offices of district panchayats and block development committees to create awareness among villagers about the benefits of land consolidation,” Uniyal said.

“Once farmers are prepared we will enforce the proposed state land consolidation law, which would be enacted soon,” he said.

The existing regulation was being amended so as to legalise the voluntary and partial land consolidation, he said, adding that those provisions would be included so that land consolidation could be initiated in a village even if its 10 families were ready for that.

Uniyal said benefits accruing to farmers from land consolidation would help them double their income and” will help check forced migration from the hills”.