“The Forest Department should not recover the land which farmers had been cultivating for many decades. He said that the State government had issued an order in 2005 that the Revenue Department should collect the land tax. The Revenue Department will not collect tax if the land is in dispute. “After the legislation of the Kerala Private Forest (Vesting and Assignment) Act, 1971, the government retrieved all lands that had not been assigned to farmers. Now farmers and Adivasis are rendered landless following the arbitrary takeover of their land under Kerala Forest Vesting and Management of Ecological Fragile Land, he said.

Source: The Hindu June 23, 2017 02:48 UTC