Guwahati: The Assam Cabinet has decided to denotify three proposed reserve forests (PRF) in Tinsukia district, enabling over 20,000 villagers to apply for permanent land pattas.
In a cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday, the state government approved transforming the PRF into revenue villages so that people living in the area can get land rights.
In today's meeting of the #AssamCabinet, we resolved to
✅Approve 3 key industrial policies
✅ Extension of MB 3.0 till Feb 15 & exemption of certain communities from 3 Gen Rule
✅Approve guidelines for MMUA-N
✅Approve Dept of Innovation, Incubation & Startup
✅New Rural roads pic.twitter.com/HGqmAEEVIh— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) January 31, 2025
The three PRFs are Talpathar (170 hectares), Mohongpathar (466 hectares) and 1st Addition to Duarmarah (113 hectares).
CM Sarama said, “With over 20,000 residents in these villages lacking land rights due to Protected Forest Reserve restrictions, we opted to reclassify these areas as revenue villages rather than maintain their Reserve Forest status.”
The chief minister termed the Cabinet approval as a “big decision” to give relief to the people in distress.
The cabinet also approved an additional home loan of Rs 15 lakh for 37,277 older state government employees under the Apun Ghar scheme. The CM said that this move aims to address the concerns of older employees who felt left out after the maximum loan amount was increased from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 30 lakh.
Other key decisions taken by the cabinet include the extension of the Mission Basundhara 3.0 application timeline.
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The cabinet approved an exemption from the three-generation domicile policy for Koch Rajbongshi, Moran, Matak, Chutia, and Ahom communities, allowing them to extend services under Mission Basundhara 3.0.
The cabinet also approved Rs 234 crore to improve 219 rural roads in tea garden areas of 19 districts.
