Former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma seeks intervention of the President to protect the interests of Adivasis in Andhra Pradesh

Adivasis, who have been cultivating government lands in the State for generations, are being deprived of their right as the authorities concerned rarely record their names as ‘cultivators’ in the village records, says former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma

Adivasis, who have been cultivating government lands in the State for generations, are being deprived of their right as the authorities concerned rarely record their names as ‘cultivators’ in the village records. Even in the case of those, whose names were recorded earlier, the local revenue authorities, in collusion with land grabbers, have often manipulated the records to record the land grabbers’ names, alleges E.A.S. Sarma, former Commissioner (Tribal Welfare), Government of Andhra Pradesh (undivided), and former Secretary to the Government of India.

In a letter to President Droupadi Murmu, Mr. Sarma said that with the introduction of computerisation, the records have become more inaccessible to disadvantaged groups among the cultivators, especially the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG s). The State government has undertaken an extensive review of the computerised village records, but it is not helpful to the Adivasis, as mere computerisation without an ‘on-the-spot’ enquiry in consultation with the Adivasis cannot lead to the detection of false entries in the records that adversely affect their interests, he said.

In several villages in Andhra Pradesh, especially in the northern districts like Alluri Sitharamaraju district, the interests of the Gadabas (PVTG) and the other Adivasis (such as Bagatas) have suffered extensively on this account. He noted that his appeal to the Andhra Pradesh government to depute teams of senior officers, representing the Revenue and the Tribal Welfare Departments, to visit the villages, interact with the local Adivasis, and get their lands surveyed in their presence, and to suo moto make necessary changes in the records to protect their interests, is yet to get proper response from the government. As a result, many Adivasi cultivators are likely to lose their occupational rights over the lands.

Mr. Sarma also noted in his letter to the President that many PVTG families (mostly Chenchus), living in the urban slums, were engaged in marginal and menial occupations like collection and selling of plastic wastes. He noted that his pleas to the State government to identify such PVTG slums across the State and to rehabilitate them, met with lukewarm response.

Citing an example, he said that there are 80-90 Chenchu families have been living for decades in a slum at ASR Nagar in Visakhapatnam city. The previous government uprooted their shelters in 2018, in the name of shifting them into pucca buildings, but the change in the State’s leadership, compounded by red-tapism, has delayed matters. He sought the intervention of the President and the Governor for the early rehabilitation of the Adivasis.