« Back to Provision

Economic and Social Development – 1999

The first Chairperson of the Land Commission was appointed in 1999, a year after the signing of the Accord. Mired in the complexity of the land situation in the CHT, the Land Commission was not functional. Its mandate and responsibilities were, in many ways, incompatible. For example, the commission was mandated to settle disputes over who is currently entitled to tracts of land where indigenous inhabitants are said to have been displaced decades earlier, many without legal titles. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Bengali settlers, who had been given a legal title to land in the CHT by the government, could not be expected to give up their familiesÕ land. Even if the Land Commission was able to legally annul land titles held by Bengalis, which the government, by all indications, would not allow to happen, there still existed no real enforcement mechanism to make them vacate the property. The police and civil administration of the CHT remained in the hands of the Bengalis and the military.