A dedicated Capacity Building Cell will be set up to address specific requirements of North Eastern States: Shri Ajay Tirkey

Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Shri Ajay Tirkey chaired a review meeting on Bhumi Samvaad VII with the theme “Land Governance in North Eastern States – Digitization Solutions for Tomorrow”  yesterday at New Delhi. Department of Land Resource organised as part of Bhumi Samvaad VII, a meeting with North Eastern States and Autonomous Hills District Councils (ADCs) to review progress under Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) and other initiatives/issues.

Secretary, DOLR, Shri Ajay Tirkey in his address emphasized that providing good governance to people is the prime objective and all concerned need to ensure a commitment to move forward and that the challenge is to steer all our efforts for effective land governance within the overall constitutional framework. Shri Tirkey also stressed the point that States that have achieved saturation in the Digitization of land records have moved ahead and leapfrogged in the process of development. He further emphasized that Digitization of land records is a prerequisite for effective implementation of development programs and schemes including infrastructure development as well as all social sector schemes. Secretary, DOLR emphasized that the starting point of good governance across sectors is good land governance.

He further expressed his happiness to note that now North Eastern States are also moving forward and a number of projects of digitization of land records have been sanctioned. He assured the support of DOLR in actively associating in the project formulation and ensuring the execution of activities in the right manner. Shri Ajay Tirkey stated that a dedicated Capacity Building Cell will be set up to address the specific requirements of North Eastern States and that each Autonomous Hill District Council (ADC) in the North Eastern States will be supported by a dedicated team of officers of Department of Land Resources, headed by a Director level officer. All such individual Teams will report to Joint Secretary, Shri Sonmoni Bora. Shri Tirkey also informed that various Project proposals of the digitization of land records of the North Eastern States and ADCs have recently been approved for Assam, Bodoland Territorial Council, Mizoram and Tripura. Secretary, DoLR requested all ADCs to send their proposals.

Concluding the discussions, Shri Ajay Tirkey, Secretary, DOLR emphasized the need to look within to identify gaps and how to overcome them with the support of States and ADCs within the confines of the constitutional framework. He further pointed out that ADCs have different unique issues and mechanisms to address these issues. He informed that a dedicated cell will be constituted in DOLR to be headed by a Director / Deputy Secretary level officer who will report to Joint Secretary for steering the activities and work on solutions specific to ADCs. Shri Tirkey expressed that it was hearting to see the realization of the benefits of DILRMP among the North Eastern States and ADCs and all will work together to achieve results in a time-bound manner.

Additional Secretary, DOLR, Shri R. Anand in his address emphasized the importance of constant dialogue to work out acceptable solutions to ensure the benefits of Digitization of land records reach all areas.

Joint Secretary, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Shri Harpreet Singh highlighted the importance of land governance through the Digitization of land records for promoting investment in various sectors and ensuring ease of doing business.

The conference had presentations on the Action Plans of ADCs for the implementation of DILRMP in their respective ADCs. The Action Plans discussed in detail included year-wise Action Plan/ Physical / Financial targets and Progress of all components and preparedness like availability/deployment of Human Resources, Capacity Building and Timeline for completion of the plan. The conference also facilitated the exchange of knowledge and ideas, showcased innovations, shared successful case studies, identified solutions, discussed future strategies and provided mutual learning opportunities on various complex and local issues on land governance in North Eastern States.

The Conference was attended by senior officials from State Revenue / Registration  Departments and Inspector General of Registration from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim; Chief Executive Officer of ADCs / Secretary to Executive Committee / Executive Secretary (ADCs); representative from B.N. Yugandhar Centre for Rural Studies of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Mussoorie (LBSNAA), Surveyor General of India, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, Government of India.

Background

This conference was organized under the Bhumi Samvaad series of Dialogues and Deliberations on Land Administration and Governance in the country. It was the 7th such Conference with States/ UTs, Ministries and Departments, and other stakeholders. The Conference focused on a review of DILRMP and other initiatives of North-Eastern States and ADCs of North-Eastern States especially digitization solutions for the North Eastern States.

Disclaimer: This is an official press release by Pib.