Badnawar (Madhya Pradesh): The construction of a soybean plant by ABS Export Limited in Kherwas village, located near Badnawar, is going on at a rapid pace. For this, the government has allotted 65 acres of land.
But the company with help of Badnawar tehsildar Ajmer Singh Goud, managed to purchase about 26 bighas more of agricultural land from Mogya caste (tribal) farmers.
The tehsildar not only helped in getting the registries done but allegedly overlooked the revenue rules of the Madhya Pradesh government. If this is not enough, construction work is being done by the factory management by encroaching upon government land and buildings too.
Tehsildar Goud registered farmers Jagdish Mogya, Kalu Mogya and Prakash Mogya, of Kherwas village as scheduled caste, instead of scheduled tribes to get these registries done.
He had also registered the agricultural land of Ghanshyam Mogya of Kherwas village in the name of Shahid Ahmed, a resident of Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh on behalf of ABS Export India Limited. In this way, about 26 bighas of land belonging to the tribal class were registered in the name of common people by showing that they belonged to the scheduled tribe (ST), which is in complete violation of Section 165 of Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, which says no person who is not a tribal will be allowed to acquire land without the permission of a revenue officer, not below the rank of the collector.
Mogya tribe is a sub-caste of the Gond tribe and is notified under the category of Scheduled Tribe for the state. Nevertheless, the tehsildar got the agricultural land registered without the permission of the collector.
When contacted sub-registrar GC Parmar admitted that the SDM Virendra Katare issued the Mogya SC caste certificate in place of Mogya ST and based on that he got the land registered.
Earlier, on November 8, 2019, a caste certificate of the scheduled tribe was issued by the then sub-divisional officer Neha Sahu in which the applicant Prakash, son Kanhaiyalal Bhati, a resident of Chandwadia was issued a certificate of being a member of Gond Mogya tribe. Many other similar certificates have been issued since then showing members of Mogya caste as tribals.
Meanwhile, the company is also using the Government Anganwadi Bhawan and Swaraj Bhawan to keep the company's material.
The villagers have informed the concerned officials about this many times but no action has been taken by them so far. The company has also been doing construction work on a drain by blocking it.
There is a real possibility that this would lead to water logging which would lead to various kinds of problems. Villagers have complained about this to the concerned senior officials.
Meanwhile, when contacted ABC Exports India Limited project manager Santosh Mishra said that Anganwadi Bhawan and Swaraj Bhawan will be shifted to other places and answering questions about water logging he said that the village and fields often get flooded in the rain and we will sit together and find a solution to this problem.
On the other hand, tehsildar Ajmer Singh Goud said that the condition of Swaraj Bhawan has become dilapidated and the panchayat has plans to shift it to another place along with the Anganwadi building. The company will provide the required amount for both buildings. Regarding encroachment on nullah, he said the company will remove this encroachment soon.
Meanwhile, SDM Virendra Kataria said that there is no SC Mogiya in the area and we are issuing ST certificates to them as per the state government norms.
