Some of those who voted YES had this to say:
• Yes but anywhere you go in Nagaland there lack city development. There is no strategy. If there is one I have not seen it. All I know is that our city or town roads are getting smaller because land owners are encroaching public space. Some state roads or Hwy are at stand still because land acquisition is not properly. Land owners and villagers wants to be properly compensated. When contractors and development officers and ministers take big chunk of the development grants road construction and compensation for land owners become secondary. As a result nothing get done. But I tell you it will not get any better because Nagas love cars. There will be more car. Our cities and Towns lack parking structure/space. People park anywhere and specially if your an officer or minister. They make their own rule.
• Government are burdened with the compensation paid to the landowners...
• Yes, a huge obstacle towards development.
• Sometimes yes in relation to orthodox owners who got no sense of dev. but leave them alone situations and EVERYTIME yes in compensation related situation..... small eg. the 4 lane plan from dmp to kmh.
• Yes, need more compensation.
• Most landowners try to get exorbitant and unreasonable amount of money for their land as compensation.
• This will be the major reason why Nagaland will remain in its same under-develop state while the other states becomes well developed. We need to give govt some land so that Engineering and medical institutes, hospitals, movie theaters, water supply and so on can be put up.
• Yes... how can we ask for development when we are not ready to part with even an inch of our land?
• Yes!! as someone said Roads, Offices, and public amenities cannot be built on AIR/hawa. We complain about small roads, lack of infrastructure yet we don't want to part away with some piece of our land for development. Let the land owners be properly compensated, the land owners should also stop asking for exorbitant prices and lastly STOP encroaching on govt. land and property.
Some of those who voted NO had this to say:
• The Nagaland government keeps blaming the land holding system as a obstacle to development. In reality this is not the case. From what I know the people will be happy to provide the land, but there must be a systematic way. Goondagiri will not work. The state government must provide adequate compensation and there must be transparency and accountability in how they go about acquiring the land, rather than sending some youth or sending the council to forcefully take away the land. The approach of the state government is actually the obstacle to the development process.
• No. Land ownership system in Nagaland is not a hurdle to development but Government is not committed to evolving ways and means to amicably protect land owners as well as progress towards genuine development. Land owners must be individually/clan wise be approached. Middle man approach is the biggest obstacle that needs to be abolished. Our family owns a plot on NH-29 in between Dimapur and Chumukedima but are never approached. So its either an unknown middle man speaking to us or the government is just making big excuses. We are looking forward to transparent development. We are jealous of neighboring states.
• Ownership system is not an obstacle in the path to development. No, it is only the lack of understanding and educated people.
• No. In fact because of the traditional Naga system of land ownership the people at least have the ability to do something about their lives. If the land belonged to the government like in other Indian states, just imagine, Nagaland would be poverty stricken many times over. But it is because the villagers still have control over their land that they are able to cultivate and survive even without the support of the state government.
• When the Compensation is minimal and even lesser than the prevailing market rates, who in their right mind would like to sacrifice? As it is, we are poor people and the Govt.'s compensation should be more than the Market rates, they should be even more generous. Just pay them and get things done for the greater good of the State.
• In reality, Nagas' Land ownership system is not an obstacle for development but Nagas greed for money under the guise of compensation, etc is all that matters. The attitude that developments are positive changes beneficial to people in the long run, in different ways, and that developments are solely for land owners i.e, you & me, must be realised with systematic approach through proper sensitisation.
• The land holding system of the Nagas is not an obstacle for development. It has been there for ages. I dont know why the Nagaland government keeps harping on this matter. It shows the government is not equipped to deal with this. Maybe because they do not have a proper policy to address this problem that they are throwing the mess to the landowners. Believe me, if the government tries to take the land away from the people, there will be a bloody revolution.
Some of those who voted OTHERS had this to say:
• Nagaland had spent 1000 crores for election, why fussy in granting land compansation, reward the landowners handsomely, there will be no problem. Everyone has a right to get "JUSTICE".
• ARTICLE 371A is a gift of GOD, it should not be erased at any cost, the solution should be; the responsible government should sincerely and adequately compensate the landowners; no coercion or RIO's back-door dirty formulas should be apply.
• Maybe both the government and land owners should have mutual understanding. But in most cases the so called government officials wants to get things done on their own terms.
• The issue is not about ownership system. The actual problem lies in how the state government has gone about acquiring land from the people. The people want fair compensation, but the government wants the land free of cost. This is the real problem, but the government is only busy misleading the public that the landowners don’t want to part with the land. Unless the government mends its ways, there will be serious problem.
• Since time immemorial, the land of the Nagas has belonged to the village community, clan and individual ownership. Article 371(A) of the Indian Constitution has nothing to do with this land holding system. They only legitimized what was already existing from before, and it is pointless for the state government to keep pointing to 371(A). If the government is serious about acquiring land from the people for development purposes, than they should also be willing to educate the people and provide sufficient compensation. If they do this, there should not be any problem.
• If only one quarter of the total Naga population is the landless and the rest the landlords whom being branded as an obstacle to all-round development in over all progress in the state which it even plausibly appears to be so at face value, than I safely feel that our local traditional landholding practices or for that matter Article 371(A) make the landowners a whipping boy. This is also one of the areas where the litmus test of the govt probity should imply in the true sense as it is superficially erroneous for anyone to single out the entire landowners for all the wrong reasons. No doubt, there are ever growing problem where the government has got to invariably deal with the pigheaded and myopic landlords in the interst and welfare for the state and contain those audacious landgrabbers and brazen land encroachers prevailing in the current scenario where both the govt and the civil societies need to cohesively work hand in hand with one another to bring all the much needed infrastructures, let alone state-of-the-art infrastructures in this knowledge based economic and technology –driven 21 century world to attain a holistic progress of the Naga society and well-rounded development of the state. Well, its never too late to do the right thing. My fellow right thinking Nagas, is it not the right time for all for one and one for all to roll up our sleeves to do what we have got to do to share up the regressive and stagnant man-made state of affairs once and for all. Kuknalim.
• We have been facing dis crisis for a long period which has been a roadblock to many developmental projects but we should also not neglect d consequences n its impacts on our people. Whenever Land acquisition takes place der should be proper rehabilitation n compensation, n most importantly environmental concerns should be taken into account in d long run. M afraid unless n until we have a clear defined law or act on land acquisition it will become a tool of exploitation in d hands of few elite class as an opportunity to amass wealth n fortune in d name of devp. Since agri farming n its related products r d main source of survival for our people, adequate process n their welfare in d long run should be kept above among other priorities, so that their future existence should not be threatened while implementing those schemes n projects.
• I think the problem comes up when the govt. dreams of acquiring the land freely. The thousand crores spent in the last election could have enabled the govt. to buy enough land to start a new mega city.
• There is trust deficit. People have lost confidence in our legislatures. They have to build that trust through probity, integrity, honesty, transparency n accountability. If they have acquired all those qualities d govt. should take initiatives to build that trust by taking into account all d stakeholders involved while implementing developmental programmes n projects. I think if they r sincere n honest in der approach there wont be any obstructions n roadblocks.
• First forget development, let look it from the perspective of land distribution. We need to impose land ceiling on the amount of land a family can hold, else our political and bureaucratic elite will own 80% of the land in no time. Land marginalization is eminent in few years time. Secondly, any development project should not overlook social and environment impacts. Most of are development projects are formulated at the center and push down the throat of states(some individuals do benefit from this model) and I guess that is one primary reason why there is no one successful large scale development project. Thirdly, the nature of development project is specific so to say 'naga land ownership system an obstacle in the path to development' is to generic a statement!!!!!
