Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), an anti-influx body on Wednesday said the Mission Basunshara 2.0 will help lakhs of Bangladeshi nationals to settle in village grazing reserve (VGR) and professional grazing reserve (PGR) across the state even as the Assam government claimed that this programme was launched for the indigenous people and is based on self-certification.

The Mission Bassundhara 2.0 was launched by Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on November 14 under which the government will carry out the settlement of government khas and ceiling surplus land, conferring ownership rights to occupancy tenants, settlement of transferred annual patta land, settlement of village grazing reserve (VGR) and professional grazing reserve (PGR), settlement of land for indigenous special cultivators, settlement of hereditary land of tribal communities, composite land transfer service and online payment of land revenue.

“Mission Basundhara 2.0 is for the indigenous people and is based on self-certification, which will state that the claimant has been residing on the land for the last three generations,” the chief minister said while launching the programme.

However, PVM alleged that Mission Basundhara 2.0 will not help indigenous people but it is aimed to settle lakhs of Bangladeshi nationals in the PVRs and VGRs of the state.

“Mission Basundhara 2.0 styled as a land reform/settlement scheme is a scheme for creating a Bangladeshi vote bank, by allotting 13.6 lakh bighas (over 4.5 lakh acres) of PGR and VGR land to landless immigrant families who came into Assam until 2011. On one hand, the state government is trying to portray an anti-immigrant image by conducting eviction drives in many parts of the state, while in reality, they are on a mission to give them settlement in the rich and fertile PGR and VGR lands of the state,” PVM convenor and Supreme Court lawyer Upamanyu Hazarika said addressing a press conference in Guwahati on Wednesday.

“On the face of it, Mission Basundhara appears to be a laudable initiative simplifying land procedures but the actual aim is the establishment of Bangladesh migrants on indigenous lands and at one stroke nullifying the Assam Movement, Clause 6 Committee report and Brahma Committee report. By notification of November 11, 2022, the state government has set out the modalities of the grant of PVR and VGR lands to encroachers and others by conferring ownership rights upon them. More than 90% of those encroachers are of Bangladeshi origin,” Hazarika said.

Hazarika argued that under the programme, for identity proof, Aadhar, PAN Card or driving licence are sufficient. Towards eligibility for allotment, refugee certificate, erosion affected certificate, encroachment fine receipts, touzi land revenue receipts or minimum needs programme beneficiary are the specified categories.The cut-off date is January 1, 2011, which means that the documents produced have to be before such date.“None of the documents are certifications of citizenship. The NRC process being undertaken on a 1971 cut-off basis did not consider these documents to be sufficient proof of citizenship,” he said.

“Now under this scheme, migrants who have come from Bangladesh as recently as 2011 will be entitled to a grant of rich and fertile PGR-VGR lands,” he also said.“Even though under the Assam Accord, citizenship was granted to migrants from Bangladesh/ East Pakistan into Assam before March 25, 1971, Assam took the burden of 23 years of additional immigration compared to the rest of India (cut off year is 1948 for rest of India), Clause 6 of the Assam Accord provided for safeguards to the local indigenous population and the Committee appointed by the present government in February 2020 had recommended that land rights, employment, trade licences etc should be granted only to those whose names or that of their ancestors who are recorded in the 1951 NRC,” he further said.

This was also the recommendation of the Upamanyu Hazarika Commission submitted to the Supreme Court in 2015 and accepted by the state government.Hazarika further said the present chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in December 2019 had emphatically asserted as a minister in the previous government that the Clause 6 Committee report would be implemented by the government without altering “any full stop or comma”.

“The state government has appointed Nazrul Islam as the advisor and architect of Mission Basundhara 2.0 overlooking a significant number of officers having greater expertise on land and revenue matters,” Hazarika alleged.In 2018, the Brahma Commission identified 7.28 lakh bighas of PGR and 6.38 lakh bighas of VGR lands in the state.

This panel had made a significant recommendation of preserving PGR and VGR lands based on that Assam is primarily an agricultural economy (65% of the land being agriculture dependent) and with the uneconomic size of land holding, the PGR and VGR lands would supplement the income of farmers for cattle rearing and grazing.

Not only has the Brahma Committee recommended against the de-reservation of PGR and VGR lands, but it had also proposed that further additional land be re-reserved for PGR and VGR to promote cattle rearing and grazing as additional sources of income.

“This entire exercise of land allotment is being undertaken furtively and surreptitiously, the chief minister focusing his government’s ‘achievement’ of eviction of encroachers from Sattra land and trying to distract public attention from this nefarious project to settle illegal immigrants,” Hazarika said.

“All of those encroachers who have been evicted in various operations have been resettled with permanent land rights, housing etc in alternative sites which is completely contrary to the provisions of the Assam Land Grabbing Act, 2010 under which land grabbing is a punishable offence carrying a maximum imprisonment of 5 years.

Commission of an offence under this Act according to the chief minister deserves to be rewarded and particularly in the person is of Bangladeshi origin where such allotment is carried out without verifying citizenship credential,” he further said.

“Under this mission, the Bangladeshi settlers will get the opportunity to get land in PVR and VGR across the state,” Hazarika said.“After Gorukhuti eviction drives in September 2021, the government settled all immigrants in Dalgaon. The society they have set up for agricultural growth in Gorukhuti does not serve the purpose of the state, but of a few BJP leaders,” he added.