Land reforms committee constituted by the government has held its first ever meeting in Gilgit andhas unanimously recommended for the abolishment of “KhalisaSarkar” land law (introduced during the Dogra regime) and conferment of ownership rights of the land to the people of the area. Senior Minister of the regional government Ghulam Muhammad while talking to this “media group” after attending the land reforms committee meeting has claimed that all political parties of the region were supporting the proposed legislation about the land reforms and government was sincerely making its efforts to address the issue. Where-as another member of the and reforms committee AmjadHussain Advocate has claimed that hence-after, no land could be allotted to any person in the region and government would acquire the land for the projects after the payment of compensation amount. Land reforms committee has also recommended that land’s which had already been allotted to different department of the government would not be given to any-one, where-as issue pertaining to disputed land would be resolved mutually by the people of the respective area and illegal allotment of lands would be cancelled.
There was a dispute between the regional administration and people of the area regarding the acquisition of land for the government projects, lands which were not entered in the revenue record against the name of individuals were termed as “KhalisaSarkar” by the administration and required land for government projects with-out payment of compensation amount, where-as local people of the respective areas were claimed that they are the real owner of the lands and if administration intends to acquire any piece of land, administration shall pay the compensation amount before the acquisition of land and both the parties i.e administration and people were not ready accepted the version of each other. It may be imperative to point out here that there was no specific law exists in the region to deal with the land related affairs except the Nautore Rules-1978 (amended in 1980) issued by the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs regarding the allotment of “KhalisaSarkar”/government land and these rules were not considered enough to resolve the land disputes. After the introduction of G-B Order-2009, Assembly of the area was empowered to legislate on the subject of land and the then PML-N led regional government (from 2015 to 2020) had constituted a land reforms committee in order to address the long-standing issue of the area and that very committee had suggest for the conferment of ownership rights of 80 percent land to the people of the area, where-as 20 percent land would be reserved for public purposes, but till the end of PML-N led regional government in the month of June 2020, said reforms could not be approved due to public resistant over the suggested land distribution formula. Previous government of the region established in the month of November 2020 had also announced for the introduction of land reforms in the region, but till the disqualification of Ex-Chief Minister of the area in the month of July 2023, land reforms could not be introduced. It may be mentioned here that incumbent Chief Minister of the area Haji Gulbar Khan had announced to introduce the land reforms and had recently constituted a 16 members committee comprises of the elected representatives of the area including the Secretary law and SMBR and this committee was directed to prepare its recommendations with-in 30 days regarding the introduction of land reforms in the region, where-as these recommendations would be considered during the next meeting of the cabinet. Said committee has held its first ever meeting in Gilgit and has unanimously recommended for the abolishment of more than one century old “KhalisaSarkar” land law and recommended for conferment of complete ownership rights of land to the people of the area, which is highly commendable and indeed good news for the people of the area as their long-standing demand was finally accepted by the government and credit must goes to the coalition government of the area.We may expect that cabinet of the area would endorse the recommendations of the land reforms committee and a unanimous bill would be adopted in the Assembly for the conferment of ownership rights of the land to the people of the area
