Displaced tribals awarded land lease deeds in Dang villages

“Until today, the displaced families were living in fear that the government authorities would demolish their houses anytime as the plots were illegally encroached. Now, they can go to sleep tension-free,” Naresh Patel said addressing the gathering at Saputara. “It was a sin by former governments to displace the tribals and keep them illiterate. We have given hakk patrak to the tribals for the betterment of themselves and their upcoming generations.” The current market value of each of the 300 square metre house is over Rs 1 crore.

Lauding the current government, he claimed that at one point, the tribals were even denied the compensation amount that was fixed.

The tribal families were displaced in 1969—within a decade after Gujarat was carved out of Maharashtra—when the then government decided to develop Saputara as a hill station.

After the acquisition, the tribal families settled in the nearby Navagam village. During the years that followed, the government tried to allot them agricultural plots at distant places but the offers were rejected.

Later, the displaced tribals formed the Saputara Navagam Visthapit Samithi and started an agitation. For the past several years, the samithi made many representations to the state government and demanded ownership of the houses they had built at Navagam. Meanwhile, the 42 tribal families expanded to 242 and had constructed homes in the Navagam area.

“For long, we have been making representations to all chief ministers to regularise our houses so that our future generations would not face any problems. We had given our lands for the development of Saputara as a hill station because tourism will get us business and employment. Even after such a long delay, we are happy that the government has considered our demands genuine and regularised our houses,” said Yashwant Pawar, a displaced family member.

A few months ago, BJP MLA from Dang Vijay Patel and tribal MLA from Mangrol Ganpat Vasava had raised the issue of displaced tribals in the Assembly. The tribal leaders also made a representation to Chief minister Bhupendra Patel for a permanent solution to the issue.