Copyright thehindu
The Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam and the All India Kisan Sabha staged a protest against land alienation in the name of industrialisation and for the retrieval of panchami lands back to the Dalits, at the Collectorate here on Tuesday (October 28, 2025). The protesters highlighted the various struggles undertaken to establish the rights of the poor over lands under their use. The association slammed the new-age land alienation by unchecked land acquisition for real-estate on the one hand, and land acquisition for projects on the other. The associations demanded that 12 lakh acres of panchami lands that were encroached upon and ‘usurped’ from the use of Dalits must be retrieved and handed over to the rightful owners. Demanding land for the tillers and users, the protesters called for land rights for those using and labouring on lands of temples, Trust, and the Waqf board. According to the protesters, the lands that were used by generations of poor must be given back. They also called upon the government to halt land acquisitions of wetlands for SIPCOT projects. Instead, the government must use the poramboke and fallow lands, and those lands that fall in the interim must be acquired after due consultations and payment of rightful compensation, the protesters said. According to the protesters, the Forest Rights Act, 2006 must be implemented to grant dwelling rights to the traditional forest dwellers. However, the associations alleged systemic alienation of the traditional dwellers from their claims to the forests. They also demanded the government revoke its 1989- issued order banning pattas for fallow poramboke in hill hamlets and include pattas for traditional dwellers on the poramboke lands.
