West Bengal Passes Land Rights Bill For Enclave Dwellers

The West Bengal government has passed a Bill to give land rights to enclave dwellers staying in the northern part of the state. The West Bengal Land Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2018, will give ownership status to people residing in these enclaves, providing citizenship of India. The Bill will also enable around 16,000 households to access civic amenities and citizenship rights such as participation in government housing schemes, etc. Also, land-rights documents will now be distributed to the residents of these enclaves.

Who is an enclave dweller?

Enclave is an area within a country or a city where people belonging to a different nationality or culture live. People staying in these areas are called enclave dwellers. India and Bangladesh have been engaging to resolve the land boundary agreement since the last forty years. It was in June 2015 when the government signed the Land Boundary Agreement and total 162 enclaves were exchanged.

According to an estimate, the state government has already spent around Rs 100 crore on housing of these enclave residents. While the Centre has already provided Rs 579 crore for the development of 13 new administrative districts in these enclaves, the rest of the area will be merged with the existing 31 districts. While plot-to-plot verification is already done, the policy implementation will now take at least two years.