Chennai: In a bid to enlighten the women panchayat presidents on land encroachment as well as to make use of the wastelands, Dhan foundation a professional development organisation, which brings significant changes in the livelihoods of rural people, conducted a seminar on encroachments and eviction in panchayat vested porombokes here on Friday. Women panchayat presidents from four districts, Madurai, Cuddalore, Theni and Nagapattinam, attended the seminar, which was an interactive session.
Santha Sheela Nair, Vice Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission, released a publication on the second edition of 'Tamilnadu Panchayat Manual'. She said that in villages there were so many wastelands. In the past, the government converted the lands into cultivable lands. But at present people dump wastes at wastelands and the government did nothing about it.
“The Dhan foundation took the initiative to protect all the ponds whereby people can use it for drinking purposes and not depend on river water,” she said. K. Vallinayagam who prepared the panchayat manual, said all lands normally belonged to the government. From time immemorial certain lands were occupied by people and used for common purpose like tanks and grazing ground. When the settlement took place that was during British period. They classified this as poromboke land, meaning common land belonging to the community.
People began to occupy the common property.He suggested that as was in vogue in Kerala rules should be issued in Tamil Nadu by which panchayats themselves could be empowered to evict encroachments.
