PALAKKAD: The collection of lease rent from scores of estates in Nelliampathy spread across thousands of acres, leased under the Kerala Grants and leases (Modification of Rights) Act, has been hanging fire owing to grinding court battles that ensued after the government issued termination notices to estates which flouted lease agreement norms.
The non-collection of lease rent has strained the hard-pressed state coffers, dragging it deeper into the ‘deficit trap’. The lease rent and quit-rent of these estates, which ranged between `1 to 5 per acre, was not been reviewed for decades, until November 25, 2009, when it was revised to `1,300 per hectare. Chief Conservator of Forests (Eastern circle) Rajesh Raveendran said that the Forest Department has sent a proposal to the government to further hike the lease rent.
Forest Department officials had recently issued a ‘no objection certificate’ (NOC) to the Karuna Plantations Limited, which facilitated them to pay land tax.
The plantation company which has been fighting legal battles in the Supreme Court immediately used the land tax receipt to perform the ‘pokkuvaravu’(transfer of registry fee). After much hue and cry, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy himself announced the ‘freezing’ of the NOC. Nenmara DFO Raju Francis was transferred in the wake of the issue. Former Electricity Minister A K Balan, who raised the issue in the Assembly, had said that the ‘pokkuvaravu’ should be annulled by the Tahsildar and the NOC cancelled with immediate effect following the Land Board secretary’s report stating the issuance of NOC was unlawful.
The division of the estates and their registration itself was a violation of the lease norms, said former Chief Conservator of Forests N K Sasidharan.